


Meant to Live for Something More

by aguantare



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:25:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1452049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguantare/pseuds/aguantare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe we’re bent and broken…but everything inside screams for second life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2010 and posted on LJ under zhi_shan and then re-posted at pearlfire. Fell out of love with football fandom for awhile, starting to get back into it now. Tetila ([AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AwakeMySoul)) | ([tumblr](http://tetila.tumblr.com/)) can vouch for my authenticity. 
> 
> Super TW on this, rape/non-con, dark content, violence
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't know them, don't own them, don't sue me.

**Eight Years Ago**

Bedsprings creaked. Sheets rustled. A barely audible whimper ghosted into the hot, heavy air in the room, answered a second later by a sharp, guttural moan. Seated in a chair by the window, a man turned to watch the broad, still mostly clothed frame on the bed settle over the prone, limp form beneath him. The fingers of his right hand toyed absentmindedly with the ring on his ring finger, his expression impassive. A few moments passed, and then the man on the bed pushed himself up and away. He zipped up his pants, still watching the naked form splayed on the covers. The man in the chair cleared his throat. The other man turned away and walked across the room on slightly shaky legs, his breathing still not quite regular. 

“You can expect a wire transfer tomorrow, Doctor,” he said, straightening his tie and tucking his shirt back in. 

The man in the chair nodded. He watched the other man leave, closing the door behind him. Then he got to his feet, toying again with his ring as he approached the bed. The young man still lying on the sheets had shifted now, brown, pain-hazy eyes watching him with something akin to betrayal. 

The man smiled, and reached for his own belt buckle.

-

“Ow, son of a—that hurt, asshole!”

Even as seventeen year old Daniel Agger said it, the momentary sting of the tattoo needle in his upper arm was already starting to lessen, and he figured he deserved the hearty slap Lance Corporal Meireles-turned training camp tattoo artist landed on his free shoulder. 

“Grow up, ya big baby,” the other man replied, his accent faintly southern, which told Dan they were probably roughly the same age, “You act like you didn’t sign up for the toughest Marine corps in the world.”

Dan rolled his eyes and went quiet for a few moments, squinting a little at the opposite wall of the tattoo parlor as the needle went over a particularly sensitive bunch of nerves.

“How long you been in?” he asked when the grating burn subsided somewhat. 

“Since I was 16,” Meireles replied, eyes focused on the needle and its path over Dan’s skin, “One of the last in before the Southern Confederation finally fell in line with the rest of the Coalition.”

“You like it?”

“Love it.”

Forty minutes later, after a few finishing touches, the tattoo was done. The lance corporal slapped Dan on the shoulder again, nodding proudly towards the mirror in the corner.

“There,” he said as Dan admired the simple yet somehow elegant C M C on his upper arm, “Now you look like a true Coalition Marine grunt.”

-

**Five Years Ago**

The razor blade was warm in his palm, the silver blade gleaming dangerously even under the warm light of the room. It was a different room than the other ones—the configuration of the furniture was different, and despite the polarized window, he’d been able to see enough silhouettes and shadows through the tinted glass to deduce which side of the hallway he was on. He knew The Doctor did it deliberately, to throw him off, but he was on to that game now, and months of counting steps as he was led, blindfolded, down the hallway, or “accidentally” losing his balance to fall against a wall had given him what he felt was an adequate picture of this prison he was being kept in. 

A two-toned chirp from the console by the door announced the arrival of his latest “client,” as The Doctor liked to call them. The man snorted to himself. Clients. They were benefactors, financial and political supporters of The Doctor, and this, the nights they came and used him, pinned him down to a bed or the floor or whatever flat surface was nearest and fucked him to exhaustion, this was their reward. He was their reward. 

No more, though, he thought, tightening his grip on the blade he’d excised from a razor The Doctor had brought him to shave with. It was a crude weapon, barely larger than his index finger, but the blade was sharp, and he knew from experience that a sharp object anywhere near the eyes was more than enough incentive for someone to do what they were told. He didn’t know who was on the other side of the door, whether they were tall or short, heavy set or slim, male or female. All he knew was that he or she, plus the blade in his hand, were his ticket out. 

-

“Alright boys this ain’t no fuckin’ drill, so listen up!”

Dan watched his company commander stalk down the aisle between the rows of Marines seated on their CH-47R Chinook transport. The woman was a force to be reckoned with, a Special-Ops veteran who’d stared down the barrels of some of the meanest and most hell-bent terrorist cells in the world and lived to tell about it. She was tough and unwavering in her training, but she was unerringly fair, and she was also the first one into the field and the last one out, and for that, her unit was the most highly sought after in the Corps. Dan still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to be assigned here, but he wasn’t going to complain either. 

“Intelligence is sketchy at best, but we know there’s a Southern Alliance post dug in to the west of the city, and at least two more in the hills. We go in weapons free, I repeat, we go in weapons free. We know these guys mean business so shoot like you fuckin’ mean it. Mission is to secure the area and all assets. Any questions?”

A resounding “No, sir!” rattled the walls of the helicopter. “Ma’am” was not an appellation any of them even dared _think_ too loudly. 

-

He wasn’t expecting there to be two of them. This had never happened before. He hesitated, and that moment of uncertainty cost him. The taller of the two shoved him back, pinned him against the wall, and even as he swung wildly out with the blade in his hand, he knew it was futile. The second man grabbed his wrist as the first pushed his forearm against his throat, and the blade fell from his suddenly limp fingers. 

A muscled thigh slid between his legs, forcing them apart. Over the shoulders of the two men, he saw The Doctor appear in the doorway. 

“Ah, Fernando,” he said, shaking his head as if disappointed. Fernando tried to glare back at him, but a hand grasped him roughly through the fabric of his trousers and his knees all but gave way. 

The Doctor watched him struggle for breath and balance, his expression cold. 

“At least you’ll learn your lesson,” he said after a few moments. 

Then he closed the door without another word. 

-

The last thing Dan remembered was the pilot screaming “Mayday! Mayday!” into the radio as the helicopter churned drunkenly over tan desert sand. They pitched left, then hard right as gravity took over. A colossal bang reverberated through what felt like Dan’s very bones, then a shocking, radiating pain shot up and down his back, and finally—

Darkness. 

-

The tiles of the bathroom floor were cold and hard under Fernando's knees. His hands ached from lack of circulation, tied tightly behind his back. He flinched away when The Doctor pressed the razor into the shaving cream smeared across his cheeks, but the man tangled his hand in his hair, holding him in place. 

"Stay still," he ordered silkily, "I hate to think what a slip of the hand might do to those pretty brown eyes." The razor passed dangerously close to Fernando's right eye and he stilled instinctively, breath coming in short bursts despite his best efforts to keep ahold of himself. It wasn't until The Doctor moved away to rinse the razor in the sink before continuing that he was able to regain at least a semblance of self-control. This session had become a new addition to the weekly routine, if it could be called such. After Fernando’s escape attempt with the razor blade, The Doctor had clearly decided that this was the best way to avoid another such attempt.

That it usually ended the same way almost all The Doctor’s other visits ended was, Fernando thought bitterly, just an added bonus. 

As the razor scraped over Fernando's cheek and jaw, The Doctor moved his hand around from his hair to his neck, stroking his fingers over the taut sinews there. Fernando swallowed, recognizing the initial overtures, but not daring to turn away, not with the blade still so close to his eyes. When the last of the shaving cream had been rinsed away and the excess water toweled away, he already knew what was coming next. 

A thumb stroking his lower lip, pulling it down accompanied the sound of a belt buckle and zipper being undone. He didn't open willingly, but he didn't resist either, and the hardness that filled his mouth, the acrid taste that flooded his senses, none of it was new. 

He just about managed to keep from gagging as the head of The Doctor's cock hit the back of his throat. Hands closed at the back of his head, holding him steady, and the ensuing thrusts were frenzied and erratic. The hot bitter burst at the back of his throat came moments later. 

The Doctor pulled back, smeared his softening cock against Fernando's newly-shaven cheek with a sated groan. 

Fernando closed his eyes and wished he were somewhere--anywhere--else.

-

It was a simple request, almost laughably so. An action so automatic he shouldn’t have even had to think about it. 

Except…

“Mr. Agger? Your left toes? Can you wiggle them for me?”

Staring up at the gray, concrete ceiling of the VA Hospital at Fort Rhine, Dan tried to quell a rising sense of panic.

“I am.”

He would forever remember the ghastly silence that met his words. 

 

**Two Years Ago**

The Citadel. 

It was like the Holy Grail of the military community, the place Military Academy valedictorians dreamed about being selected for. Even the Special Ops people, the Red Berets and the Nighthawk squadrons talked about The Citadel with deference. On the surface, it was an intelligence operation, a revamped CIA or MI6. 

Only everyone in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Special Forces knew that only those with the highest qualifications in everything from mathematics and languages to marksmanship and marital arts went through the doors of The Citadel. No one talked about it, but everyone knew. 

Dan stared at the summons, electronic like everything was now, but coded Green, which meant it hadn’t passed through any third party server to get to his Inbox. The Citadel crest—a black eagle with an arrow in its talons, wreathed in a half circle of gold leaves and black thorns—was displayed prominently at the top. 

He wasn’t entirely sure why they wanted him, a discharged Marine who was still re-learning how to walk. 

But he certainly wasn’t going to say no.

-

In retrospect, Fernando would realize that it had all been too easy, the circumstances all lining up too perfectly to be a coincidence. But when he saw that his door had been left unlocked, he took the opportunity without second thought, knowing that it could literally be years before another such chance presented itself. 

Security was lax, almost non-existent, and he drew up the hood of his worn, but still wearable sweatshirt to hide his hair and hopefully some of his face from the cameras he knew had to be there, even if he couldn’t see them. 

The hallways by sight were unfamiliar to him—the only times he’d been outside of the cold, sterile room he’d known since he was 18, it had been with a blindfold over his eyes. The floor under his feet, however, was another story, and as he counted off steps and felt the contours of the tiles change, he knew precisely when he’d passed beyond the boundary of where he’d been previously. 

Emboldened, he made for the first door he could find that was marked as an exit, and after checking for any alarm triggers, he pushed it open. 

-

“Afternoon, Mr. Agger. How’s your back doing?”

Dan came to attention, as much out of force of habit as anything else, as the director of The Citadel walked into the conference room he’d been directed to wait in, flanked by two other men, both in full military blues, both with substantial “salad bars” of decorations on the left sides of their chests. 

“Just fine sir,” he replied. 

“That was some crash you went down in,” the director noted, taking a seat and directing the others to do the same.

“Yes, sir.” Dan didn’t know how else to respond. For a moment there was silence, and he felt uncomfortable under the obvious scrutiny from all three men on the opposite side of the table, but the director seemed to sense his discomfort and spoke quickly to ease it. 

“Mr. Agger, how much do you know about what we do here at The Citadel?”

Dan was quiet for a moment, formulating his answer. 

“The way I understand it, sir, The Citadel is an intelligence…operation.” 

He thought he saw a ghost of a smile cross the lips of the dark-haired man to the director’s right, and this was the man who spoke up next. 

“You understand pretty well, it seems,” he said. His accent was strong, Spanish if Dan wasn’t mistaken, and that meant he was probably a couple years older than him. The Southern Confederation, while taking its time to officially join the Coalition, had instituted language reform a few years earlier than everyone else. Most southerners of Dan’s age carried only a token trace of an accent. 

“You qualified First Class in Long Range High Precision Marksmanship at the Corps, correct?” 

“Yes, sir,” Dan replied. 

“And Elite Class in…Standard Marksmanship?” This was the man on the left, his accent distinctly northern, British Isles, Dan thought. 

“Well, sir, we Marines like to call it Grunt Shooting,” he replied with a small smile, “But yes.” It was a risk, to even attempt anything other than a direct “yes sir” or “no sir,” but it paid off. All three men on the other side of the table smiled, and the atmosphere loosened just a bit. 

“You’re fluent in Standard, Queen’s English and…?”

“Danish, sir.”

“Impressive.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Another short pause. Dan no longer felt like he was under scrutiny, however. Eventually the director spoke up again. 

“Mr. Agger, let me explain why we summoned you here.”

-

The last time Fernando had been outdoors had been years ago. He couldn’t even quite remember when or where, only that there had been a plane ride over a seemingly endless expanse of shimmering, glistening waves, then three days of The Doctor introducing him as his “research partner,” followed by three nights of incomprehensible pain. 

It was almost overwhelming, the brightness of the sun, the freshness of the air, the endless chatter of voices around him. He took shelter in the doorway of a closed store, crossing his arms tightly over his chest and feeling at once exhilarated and frightened, but not frightened like he felt every time the lock to his room clicked open. This kind of fear, he thought he could deal with. 

The first thing he needed, he realized, was money. He looked down at his right hand, at the ring that he’d worn for as long as he could remember. As a kid, he recalled The Doctor telling him it was a gift, something he should always keep with him as a reminder of how “special” he was. 

Fernando felt a sudden surge of nausea. Special. Yeah, he was special alright. 

His first inclination when he’d slipped out of the compound had been to throw the thing away, dispose of anything to do with The Doctor and the life he’d forced him into. But now he fingered the simple silver band with renewed interest, wondering whether he might be able to pawn it for some hard currency.

-

“So…this is an operation aimed at internal…anomalies.”

The director raised an eyebrow, perhaps just a touch impressed. 

“You walk the walk and you talk the talk,” he noted, “Might have made a General out of you.” Dan smiled politely. 

“Thank you, sir.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Permission granted.”

Dan shifted a little in his seat, feeling a familiar twinge in his back.

“Why me?” he asked after a moment. It was a valid question, and they all knew it, but at the same time, the military establishment wasn’t one to look too kindly on uncertainty, hence the pre-emptive request for permission. 

The director smiled, not unkindly. 

“Gerrard and Alonso here will disagree with me,” he said, glancing sideways at the other two men, “But I believe there’s no one better equipped to make tough, lightning fast decisions in the field than a Marine. I read your file, I know about some of the ops you pulled in southeast Asia that never made the papers. You’re smart, you’re tough as nails, and contrary to popular belief, we like the fact that you’ve upheld your moral integrity.” 

“Sir?” Dan knew what the director was talking about, but he was required by law to feign ignorance. 

“I know,” the director said, holding up a hand, “The Coalition had no involvement in Chiang Mai. The three plane loads of civilians who escaped safely to China did so on their own.”

“Yes, sir.” 

The director put his hand down and looked at Dan across the table. 

“You’re not under any obligation whatsoever, Mr. Agger,” he said, “All we ask is that you consider this offer.”

-

The bathrooms in St. Vincent Station were small, even for a transit station, but Fernando thought he had a vague recollection that St. Vincent had, at one time, been a single-line subway station, so maybe that explained it. 

He wasn’t really paying attention to the other people in the bathroom, and when he moved to wash his hands and inadvertently bumped shoulders with someone, he didn’t think much of it. 

Next thing he knew there was a hand in his hair, pulling so hard it brought tears to his eyes. The hard toe of a boot rammed into the back of his leg and he quite literally fell to his knees. For a moment he thought it was simply a case of having bumped into someone who was already having a bad day, and he braced himself for a few punches, maybe a kick or two. 

Then the man standing above him reached for his belt buckle. 

-

Dan walked out of The Citadel and halfway up the block managed to flag down a Blue Line transport. It wouldn’t be fast, but it would get him home. He gave the driver his address, paid his fare with a quick swipe of his government ID card, and headed to the unoccupied, elevated seats in the back. 

He felt like his head should be spinning with everything he’d been told, everything that was happening, but it wasn’t, not really. He was still a Marine at heart, a soldier whose mission was to protect, honor, serve and defend his country. Military life was wholly different than life as a civilian, and while he could function perfectly well as a civilian, he found order and stability, even comfort in life as a soldier. Maybe he just couldn’t be on the frontlines anymore, one of the few who ran in when everyone else was running out. Maybe he had protected and defended, and now it was time to honor, and serve.

Or maybe, he thought, maybe some things that needed to be protected and defended were closer to home than he realized. 

-

Fernando almost made it out of the bathroom. Almost. A hard punch to the groin had released the other man’s hold on him, and he was halfway out of the door when he ran full-force into a solid body. The second man, taller than the first, and lighter haired, looked momentarily surprised. Then, Fernando saw, something in his eyes changed, like a glaze settled over them, clouding their color. 

He grabbed Fernando’s collar and shoved him back into the bathroom. 

-

“What do you think?”

Coalition Army Second Lieutenant Steven Gerrard glanced sideways at his companion as they walked through the maze of hallways back towards their offices on the fourth floor of The Citadel.

“What do I think of what, _sir_?”

Coalition Army First Lieutenant Xabi Alonso quirked a smile as he tapped the folder in his hands.

“About the kid. Agger,” he responded. Steven shrugged.

“Seems sharp. Definitely tough. Psychologically sound?”

Xabi opened the folder and scanned the first page of the file. 

“Looks like Dr. Benitez over at Obispo cleared him. He had…six months of counseling after the crash,” he said. Steven nodded a little.

“Sole survivor, right?” 

“Yeah.”

“Jesus.”

They arrived at their offices, situated across a narrow hallway from each other. Xabi’s office sign still read “Second Lieutenant,” proof of just how recent his promotion had been. 

“Guys like him are rare,” Steven noted, nodding towards the folder in Xabi’s hand, “Military’s full of half-wit trigger-happy bozos who don’t give a shit who they kill or why. This kid’s different. Got his head on straight, takes the honor code seriously. The Coalition could use a thousand more like him.”

“You think he’ll sign on?” Xabi asked before they parted ways. Steven offered a rare smile at his former Military Academy roommate and longtime friend. 

“I bloody hope so.”

-

They were taking turns. At least, Fernando was pretty sure that’s what they were doing. The burn of initial penetration, a barrage of frenzied thrusts while a mouth against his ear hammered out grunts, then momentary relief before the hands at the back of his neck and pinning his wrists changed and it started all over again. He wasn’t even sure how many there were now—he knew at least two other people had walked in and not yet left, and the cacophony of heavy breathing and obscenity-laden groans seemed to surround him on all sides. 

The metal of the bathroom stall was smooth and cold against his chest, and he tried to focus on that sensation, hang on to it in the haze of pain, but the thrusts were so deep now, the hands on his body so bruising that it was all but impossible. 

He buried his face in his arm as he felt one of them start to come inside him. He’d long since learned that any sound, good or bad, only encouraged them, but as his body clenched yet again against another invasion, his lips, seemingly of their own accord, mouthed silent pleas to stop against his skin. 

Vaguely, he heard the door open again. 

“No…” he moaned without really meaning to. Over time, he’d learned to endure a lot, a frightening amount if he thought about it, but this, this was too much. 

The hands fell away from him. The heavy breathing faded. As he slid to the floor he heard the sounds of rustling clothes and zippers being done up. There were footsteps, the swooshing of air as the door opened and closed, and then—

Silence. 

For a long time, Fernando just lay there, slumped against the wall, wondering if he was dying, feeling like he was, hoping that if he was, it would happen before someone else walked in. 

Then a hand tangled in his sweat-matted hair, pulling his head up. 

“Look at me.” 

He knew that voice. He kept his eyes closed. The hand in his hair yanked hard. 

He opened his eyes just enough to see The Doctor looming above him. 

“Next time,” The Doctor hissed, holding up his free hand and indicating his ring, “I won’t save you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Present Day**

The face on the data pad in Dan’s hand wasn't one he recognized, but he was sure that by the end of this initial info session, he'd know everything down to the name of the man's first pet. Two years of working at The Citadel under the innocuously named Operation Ace had taught him that Xabi and Steven made up one of the best intelligence teams in the world. Working together, they could find every bit of information about any one on the planet. They weren't afraid to push boundaries, they were even less afraid of going undercover, and Dan had learned to trust them almost innately, knowing that when he was out in the field, intelligence could be the difference between life and death. 

At face value, though, this case didn't look like much. There wasn’t much on the Threat Board at the moment, so maybe that was why this one had ended up on their desks.

"He's known simply as The Doctor," Xabi said, tapping his fingers across his own data pad so two more pictures appeared on the other team members'. One was of the same face, only younger. The other was a graph, showing a slowly rising line that started a sudden and steep incline about eight years prior. 

"The guy's a world-renowned geneticist," Xabi continued, a quick tap of the fingers unfurling a list of statistics along the side of each data pad, "Won all sorts of prizes when he figured out how to knock out the gene for leukemia, but that was only three years ago, and the leap in funding started eight years ago." He indicated the graph. Dan slid a finger across the graph and watched the numbers grow exponentially from just over €5,000 a year to more than €400,000. 

"Money laundering?" he asked.

"And/or fraud,” Steven added.

"He's hosting a conference at his compound down in the Southern Region," Xabi said, "Dan, we're sending you down to take a look around."

"Alone?" Dan asked. Something else he'd learned over the years was not to be afraid to express uncertainty. Sometimes a single question could lead to a tiny change that otherwise could have blown the whole mission apart. 

"We don't have any reason to believe this guy or any of his associates are dangerous," Steven replied, "Pepe will set you up with some assets before you go though, just in case."

"Cover story?" Dan asked next, making a mental note to head down to the armory after the meeting. Jose "Pepe" Reina was their weapons specialist, a Marine and Special Ops guy himself, and Dan always liked an excuse to check out what new stuff he had to show off. 

Steven handed over another data pad. Dan took it, scanned the info. Then he looked up at the other two. 

"…Mr. Titmouse? Really? Sorry Lieutenants, but fuck you guys."

Xabi and Steven just laughed.

-

It didn't hurt. Not physically anyways. In fact when The Doctor pressed his fingers against Fernando's weakness, it was all Fernando could do not to moan in pleasure. 

But the shame burned him, like a red hot flame. How could he enjoy this? How could he allow himself to arch up for more when so often this man had tied him down and fucked him raw, with absolutely no regard for his comfort, his well being?

The Doctor's tongue flicked over the head of his cock, fingers probing, and Fernando closed his eyes, hating himself as he started to harden.

-

"Pepe, you in here?”

Dan stepped into the armory, glancing into the firing range and finding it empty. 

“Just a second!” Even at distance, Pepe Reina’s voice carried an air of authority, and Dan often thought that the man would make a good squad colonel, or maybe even a major. Command wasn’t for everyone, though, and he respected every person’s right to make that decision for themselves. 

“Hey, soldier, what brings you down here?” Tall, broad-shouldered and already starting to lose his hair, Pepe Reina looked every bit the part of a Marine Corps grunt. That he could handle virtually any weapon in The Citadel’s arsenal with the finesse of an expert wasn’t something that one might immediately assume looking at him, but Dan had trained with him enough to know that it was indeed the truth. 

“Assets for a trip down south,” Dan said, accepting the friendly handshake from the other man, “Visiting this guy called The Doctor in Greater Madrid. Smells like a crook, but probably not a killer.”

“Ooh, España,” Pepe exclaimed in a perfect Spanish accent. 

“You speak Spanish?” Dan asked as he followed Pepe back towards the storage room. 

“Yeah, it was just being phased out of schools by the time I graduated,” Pepe responded, pressing his hand to the reader next to the door to the storage room. After a few moments it chirped brightly and the door slid open. “Alright, what do you feel like carrying? I recommend light stuff—it’s going to be hot there.”

“Well with any luck I won’t need anything more than a sidearm but…” Dan trailed off as he reached out and ran his fingers lightly over the barrel of a sleek, smooth pistol lying on a black cloth on the table in the center of the room. Its light silver sheen contrasted with the dark gloss of the more traditional service pistols lining the far wall, and the clean, graceful lines of the barrel and grip reminded him vaguely of the Berettas. 

“Prototype out of El Sur,” Pepe said by way of explanation, “Los Torres. Tower Series. Shoots like a dream. Semi-automatic, BDC, the whole nine yards. Range is right up there with the standard-issue rifles.”

Dan let out a low whistle.

“A sidearm with the range of an HK 39? Sign me up.”

“Yeah, you probably wouldn’t like it though,” Pepe observed, “It sits a little high in the palm.” Dan picked the pistol up, checked the chamber to make sure it was empty, then closed his hands around the grip, as if to shoot. 

“Yeah,” he agreed after a moment, “Doesn’t quite fit me. But I bet there are some guys who could really make this thing sing.” He set the pistol back on the table; it was all well and good to talk cavalierly about shooting in the abstract, but when it came down to live fire and combat, he and Pepe both knew shooting meant killing, and that wasn’t something to be cavalier about. 

“Alright,” he said, effectively and efficiently switching gears from pensive to pragmatic, “Let’s go with the Beretta 98, the Glock 19 and the CZ78…”  
-

"Ride me."

Fernando shuddered as The Doctor gripped his hips, emphasizing his command with a sharp thrust up into him. He wanted to say no, he wanted to refuse, but it didn't hurt, at least not really. And one way or another this was going to happen. At least now he had some sort of control over the situation. 

So he moved, slowly at first, then more quickly as The Doctor's fingers dug into his hips and thighs, urging him on, spreading him wider. He tried to ignore the toe-curling jolt every time the cock inside him brushed against his prostate, but it was a virtually impossible task. Soft noises of--god help him--pleasure started to escape between his bitten lips. 

And then The Doctor was stroking him, fisting him in time to his movements, and even as he arched and cried out, writhing at the height of arousal, he screwed his eyes shut, loathing himself for not being strong enough to resist. 

-

Pepe was right. Greater Madrid was hot this time of year. Although it was nothing compared to the dry, baking heat of the Middle East or the wet, drenching humidity of Southeast Asia, Dan was still glad the armorer had advised him to pack light. The plane touched down at 0600, and, courtesy of his modified credentials that identified him as a Citadel agent, by 0630 he was descending the stairs to the transit station almost 300 meters below ground level. 

It took him three transfers and two wrong trains to get on the correct train that would take him to what had once been the suburbs of the city of Madrid. Once he was settled into a seat near the back, he dug out the small data pad he’d brought with him to review the mission and brush up on his cover story. 

The Doctor’s Sylvana Compound, housing his internationally accredited Sonora Research Institute as well as his fledging Horizon Research University, was located in what was at one time a city called Fuenlabrada. The conferences were always at the Compound, usually bi-annual, and in reading over past conference write-ups, Dan got the sense they were as much about meeting and making connections as they were about presenting and hearing about new research.

He was, courtesy of Steven and Xabi’s twisted sense of humor, Mr. Richard Titmouse, a researcher in genetics from a corporation in the British Isles called Aris. The corporation did not, in fact, exist, but a few extra hours on Steven’s part had created a whole history of the company, including a list of representatives who had “attended” The Doctor’s conferences in the past. With the help of some of the guys and gals in the tech department, they’d even managed to hack into a few past conference databases and add a couple names to make the company seem more legit. If they were ever traced, which was highly unlikely, bordering on impossible, they could simply use the guise of national security. 

The forensics guys had given him a shot of some sort of hormone to make his hair grow out, just enough to disguise the fact that he’d ever had a military buzz cut, and Stevie and Xabi had gone to great lengths to find him a suit that was just enough of a poor fit to make him look like a researcher trying his best to clean up. They’d tried to give him glasses too, but Dan had rebelled at that—there was only so much disguising he could take before it started to feel like a caricature. 

He scanned the data pad one last time, then tucked it back into the side pocket of the small suitcase he had with him before hunkering down for a quick cat nap. With any luck, he thought, this would be a quick in and out operation, nothing too complicated or out of the ordinary.

-

It was rare that The Doctor himself brought Fernando’s food to him, and over the years, Fernando had figured out that when he did, it was always for the same reason. 

“I’ll be having a number of guests in the compound this weekend,” The Doctor said, setting the food down on the table by the door, “Some of them will pay you visits. I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

Fernando clenched his jaw, refusing to meet the man’s eyes. Once, after his first attempt with the razor blade, he’d tried again, this time during one of the conferences The Doctor seemed to host every so often, slamming the head of one of his “visitors” into the sink in the bathroom and breaking his nose. He’d gotten all of five steps into the hallway before security caught him, and The Doctor had beaten him so badly with his belt that he couldn’t lie on his back for over a week. 

When Fernando didn’t respond, The Doctor walked across the room and took his chin in his hand, forcing him to look up.

“You should eat,” he said, his tone almost silky, “You’ll need the strength.”

-

By the second day of the conference, Dan was desperately wishing he’d brought a second data pad to store information on. His background in science was broad at best, and he knew within the hours upon hours of lectures and presentations he was taking in there had to be some information that would be useful, if not to his exact mission, then at the very least to The Citadel. Storage space on this fifth generation of data pads was greatly expanded, but still limited, and he was starting to delete some of the mission details to make more space. And while he was confident said details were hardwired into his brain, he still felt wary of simply erasing them. 

The Doctor gave the closing speech on the evening of the second day, and afterward, Dan joined the cluster of people around him, patiently waiting his turn to shake the famous scientist’s hand while simultaneously tuning in to the various conversations around him. Intelligence, Steven and Xabi had told him repeatedly, was as much about luck as anything else, and you never knew quite where something interesting might pop up. 

“…take advantage of The Doctor’s asset while we’re here…”

“…yes, an experience you don’t forget…”

“…make an appointment and he’ll see to it…”

Without really realizing it, Dan had eased to the front of the cluster, and all of a sudden he found himself face to face with The Doctor, a flesh and blood version of the image he’d memorized off an electronic screen. 

“Doctor, the name is Titmouse. Richard Titmouse.” It was an effort not to choke on the absurd name, but Dan managed it. “It’s an honor to meet you sir.” The Doctor smiled and shook his hand.

“Ah yes, Richard. I remember your name from the guest list. Would be hard not to, yes?” His accent was educated, Dan noted, with perhaps a tinge of the British Isles. 

“Yes, sir,” he replied with not entirely feigned sheepishness. He was going to kill Steven and Xabi when he got back to The Citadel. He started to step back to let someone else have their turn, but The Doctor stopped him. 

“This is your first time at one of my conferences, is it not?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Dan answered, “Although I believe my company has sent previous representatives.” 

“Ah.” The Doctor leaned closer, a hand now on Dan’s upper arm. “And your previous representatives, they had…good experiences?”

“Yes,” Dan responded, improvising just a touch as he added, “I believe ‘exceptional’ and ‘outstanding’ were two of the superlatives they used.” The Doctor smiled.

“Did they say why?” he asked.

“No, sir, I have to say they didn’t.” The Doctor smiled again.

“Well, my friend, then you are in for a surprise. If you have no plans later this evening, I’d like to invite you to a…private meeting. For those companies that continue to support our research and development, I like to share some of my…more valuable assets.”

Dan raised an eyebrow in interest, while his inner Marine gave an emphatic ‘’Oorah!” This was better than he could have hoped for. The Doctor was clearly speaking in code, saying one thing when he meant another. Perhaps this private meeting would yield exactly what he had come here looking for. Or if not that, then at least something else that could be useful.

“Consider my interest piqued, Doctor.” 

“Very good. Room 509, 8:00. Do try to be on time.”

“Of course. Thank you very much, Doctor.”

-

Fernando didn’t move from where he was lying, facedown and naked on the bed, when he heard the door open and close, followed by the shuffle of approaching footsteps. This didn’t happen every time after one of The Doctor’s benefactors paid him a visit, but it happened often enough that he had come to expect it. 

He didn’t even have the strength to muster a groan when a finger slid into his aching entrance, probing almost clinically. It slid out a few seconds later, trailing wetly across his lower back, and The Doctor sounded pleased as he murmured,

“Good boy.” 

-

At precisely 8:00, Dan knocked on the door of Room 509. It had taken him awhile to find it, the hallways in this wing of the Compound a veritable maze of seemingly random number and letter sequences. He found it odd that this wing seemed more like a research wing than a meeting one, but then he figured that maybe the whole “private meeting” thing had something to do with that. 

A light tap on the console outside the door elicited a slightly delayed response, and two seconds later, the door slid open. Confusion swept over him as his eyes took in the decidedly bedroom-like surroundings and the unfamiliar figure seated at the edge of the bed, and for a split second he thought about simply turning around and walking away, but the Marine in him dismissed that thought almost immediately. 

With a deliberateness meant to signal confidence, he stepped inside the room, and the door closed behind him.

-

Fernando hid a wince as he got to his feet and approached this latest client. He still ached from the previous encounters throughout the day, and he knew it was too much to hope for that this one would provide any sort of relief. The sooner he initiated it, he thought, the sooner it would be over. 

He held out his hand, as if to introduce himself, and the other man, tall and suited like so many of the others, took it on instinct.

Fernando saw the change in his eyes, the haze that seemed to cloud over them. And when he found himself shoved down on the bed, one hand at the back of his neck while the other worked furiously at his trousers, he didn’t resist. 

The whimper that escaped him when he felt hot, hardened flesh pressing against his entrance wasn’t intentional. He would have bitten back if he could. He just wished it wouldn’t hurt so much.


	3. Chapter 3

It was like coming up from deep water, or coming out of a deep sleep. Somewhere in the depths of Dan’s mind, a voice was telling him to stop, hold on, back the fuck up, and it was training more than anything else that made him listen. Like trying to wake up from a bad dream, he squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself back to awareness and little by little, he clawed his way back. He became conscious of the throbbing, pulsing heat in the pit of his stomach, the hitching of his breathing in his chest—

And the helpless sound from the prone, blonde-haired figure beneath him. 

“Oh god.”

It was the most nauseating sensation he’d ever felt, the jarring realization that he was a hairs-breadth away from taking this man against his will.

_How the hell did this even happen?_ Dan shoved himself bodily off the bed, away from the other man. His hands were trembling so badly he could barely do up his trousers to at least try and recovery his modesty, and even as he did so, he could still feel arousal pulsing through his veins, centering between his legs. 

His back hit a wall and he slumped a little against it, staring at the half-naked figure on the bed. It took a colossal effort to remember how he’d even gotten here in the first place, and as much as he racked his memory for what had happened next, he couldn’t call up anything, save the almost dizzying sensation of pure want. 

He stood there for what felt like minutes, although in reality it was perhaps ten seconds. Some of the haze started to lift from his mind, though the nausea remained. The man on the bed shifted, turning his head to look at him, and Dan had the sharp, sudden impression of a wounded, caged animal. 

“Fuck,” Dan breathed, anger, rage directed at himself sparking to life in the pit of his stomach. He was a Marine. He lived by a code of honor. He had sworn an oath, before his country, before god and whatever higher power was out there, that he would uphold that code, even staring down the barrel of a gun. 

And now? He’d come within an inch of violating that code, and he didn’t even know how it had happened. 

“Fuck.” Dan turned and made for the door, sick with himself, nausea beginning to outweigh what little arousal was left in his system. 

He was halfway there when a hand on his arm stopped him, and the surge of renewed arousal nearly made his knees give way. He lashed out reflexively, pushing the other man back.

“What the hell?” he asked, suddenly breathless. “What the hell is this?” 

The man seemed to shrink back, although Dan didn’t read it as submission. Confusion, maybe, or uncertainty. 

“You can’t leave,” he murmured, and his voice was deeper and stronger than Dan would have expected, judging by his youthful features. 

“What…what the fuck?” Dan snapped, swallowing hard. He was confused—he’d nearly raped this man, and now he was asking him to stay? He didn’t understand, and his anger with himself was so manifest that he couldn’t keep his tone level. 

“You…you have to,” the other man clarified quietly. 

“I have to what?” Dan asked. His arousal was beginning to ebb again. 

The other man didn’t answer, but the hand holding his trousers up around his hips tightened almost imperceptibly, and suddenly Dan understood. 

“No,” he said firmly, “No, I didn’t come here to…to do that.” 

“You have to,” the other man insisted, “He’ll know if you don’t and…and it’ll be worse for me then.” 

“What?” Dan shook his head, too many questions springing up in his mind to keep straight. “Who’s…Why? What are you talking about? Who are you?" The blonde-haired man looked even more confused by the sudden onslaught of questions, and Dan shook his head again and moved his hand to the console to open the door. The other man reached for his arm, but stopped short when Dan flinched sharply away. 

"He just calls me Fernando," he said quietly. 

"Who?" Dan demanded, "Who's 'he'?" It came out harsher than he had intended, but the other man's reluctance to meet his eyes still seemed to be borne more out of confusion than fear. 

"The Doctor," he replied. Dan looked at him for a long moment, one, tiny piece of knowledge falling into place in the cacophony of confusion in his mind: The Doctor meant for him to be here, meant for both of them to be in this room at the same time, meant for this to happen. 

"No," he said again, after a moment to let that thought settle into place, "I didn't...I'm not--"

"You have to," the other man--Fernando--cut him off, and it almost sounded to Dan's ears like a plea, which wouldn't have made any sense, except for the ragged scars, some not even fully healed, that Dan, now back at least nominally under his own volition, could see criss-crossing the other man's body. 

His hand hovered over the console for a few seconds longer. 

Then he lowered it slowly back to his side.

-

Fernando usually did his best to forget every face that came through his door. He had no reason, no desire to remember the people who used him for their own gratification, their reward for fawning over The Doctor.

But when the last person had finally left for the night, Fernando curled up under his thin, threadbare sheets, closed his eyes and let one face float to the forefront of his mind. He had no name to assign the face, only a memory. But it was a good memory. A memory of being thoroughly prepared, of being taken with a care he’d never known before, of being able to come without feeling ashamed. He remembered being able to physically see the restraint on the other man’s face as he moved inside him, and even as Fernando was swept away on the almost foreign-feeling torrent of unchecked orgasm, he felt at once grateful for the man’s self-control and intensely curious as to how he was so different from everyone else. 

He was sure he’d never see the man again. As careful, gentle even, as he’d been, it was clear he hadn’t enjoyed doing what he’d done, and Fernando thought to himself that this was a paradox, that he should be glad the man hadn’t enjoyed it and yet he found himself wishing, in some way, that he had. 

-

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Dan tried to get a read on Xabi’s face as he looked up from his desk, but the lieutenant, as always, gave nothing away. 

“Yeah, come on in.” He didn’t sound angry, which Dan took as a positive sign, but it could also just be professionalism. For the first time in what felt like a long while, he waited until Xabi motioned towards the empty chair to take a seat. 

“I read your report,” Xabi said after a few moments of flipping through electronic files on the standalone screen in front of him. 

“Yes, sir,” Dan replied, for lack of anything else to say. Xabi pushed the screen aside and leaned forward, his eyes on Dan scrutinizing, but not unkind. 

“I don’t doubt the truth of what you wrote,” he said, and Dan knew he meant it—when it came to dealings with his colleagues and co-workers, Xabi was never one to sugarcoat anything, much less lie. 

“I’m glad to hear that, sir,” he responded quietly, “I didn’t…I’ve never had something like that happen to me before. Don’t remember it ever coming up in case studies, either.”

Xabi eyed him in silence for a moment.

“Are you alright?” he asked eventually, and Dan knew he was asking as a friend, rather than as his boss. He no longer asked for permission to speak freely around Steven or Xabi, and although he still called them ‘sir,’ it was more out of habit than anything else. They didn’t often speak about personal matters, but then there really weren’t that many of those, at least not in their line of work. 

“Sir, I’ve made some bad calls in the field,” Dan said quietly, looking down at his hands, “Got two of my guys killed when I moved too fast on some faulty intelligence. Got five civilians killed in a botched artillery attack. Tried my best to learn from those mistakes. Never forgot how it felt.” He looked back up at Xabi. 

“This felt different,” he stated definitively, “It was like the call was out of my hands before I could even make it. And I wasn’t even aware of it until it was almost too late.”

Another moment of silence passed. Xabi didn’t say that “almost” had been the difference between keeping his job and receiving a court martial, and Dan was grateful for that. 

“I don’t like it, sir,” he said finally, “Everything about it is just…off. The Doctor’s a crook at best and at worst…” He trailed off as his mind spun off in the same myriad directions it had ever since the conference. Xabi didn’t say anything, no doubt seeing the proverbial wheels turning in Dan’s head. 

“…I don’t know,” Dan continued, half to himself, “He’s a geneticist with mountains of money to hide behind. Maybe it’s some sort of…sick experiment?”

“Instigating predatory sexual urges into subjects?” Dan occasionally forgot that Xabi had gone through the Social and Medical Sciences track at the Academy’s post-graduate center and could speak psychology and medicine almost as well as he spoke military. “Sounds more like psychopathic behavior than experimentation.”

Dan shrugged.

“So he’s a psychopath with a good cover story. Wouldn’t be the first, would he?”

“Not by a long shot,” Xabi agreed, reaching for the intercom button on his desk console, “I’m going to make a call up to Behavioral Sciences, see if they can spare us someone on this one.”

-

Dan had always thought that the people from Behavioral Sciences were a slightly odd group, psychologists and sociologists who knew way too much about the human brain and saw every little action, down to an involuntary scratch of the head as a sign of some deep, brewing disorder. 

Steve Finnan, PsyD, MD and just about every other doctor in the book, was not, he realized very quickly, that type at all. Besides the fact that his decorations included two purple hearts and three Medals of Distinction, which indicated he’d seen open combat, he kept their discussion frank and free of jargon. He said things like “showing signs of” instead of “symptomatic,” and “weird behavior” instead of “deviant functionality.” 

When they were done with their initial discussion with Steven and Xabi, Steve caught up with Dan on the way back to his office. 

“Alonso says you’re a Marine,” he said. 

“Was,” Dan corrected with a slightly rueful smile, “Honorably discharged after a ‘copter crash in the Central Desert.” Steve offered a respectful nod, then held out his right hand. 

“Well, I just wanted to shake your hand,” he said, “I served with some Marines in Indo-China and they were the toughest sons of bitches I ever saw and some of the best guys to have a pint or two with in the canteen too.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dan replied, shaking his hand, “Got to admit, I miss the Corps sometimes.”

“Judging by your file, it sounds like you’re the kind of guy they miss, too.” Steve clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “I’ve got to get back upstairs, but I’ll see you at the meeting Friday morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Later, soldier.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Hello, Aris Corporation, this is Richard.”

“Richard, this is your doctor, returning your call about your appointment.”

“Ah, yes, good to hear from you, Doctor. Were you able to find a time that is…advantageous?”

“Yes, I believe so. However, there is the small issue of the payment for your previous visit.”

“My apologies, Doctor. Is wire transfer an acceptable method of payment? I would be willing to pay an advance on my future visits. I believe my diagnosis warrants such prudence.”

“You are a wise man, Richard. Please forgive my insistence on monetary issues. How does the 13th look for you?”

“Excellent. Perhaps an evening appointment, in case it runs long?”

“Of course. Seven o’clock?”

“Seven o’clock. Thank you, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Richard.”

-

“Alright guys, unless you’ve had your heads buried in the sand the last couple days, you know the director has kicked this case up to Priority 2, so this stays on top of the pile unless the world is ending.” 

Xabi, in his white service uniform for once, sat down at the head of the table in The Citadel’s fourth floor conference room and called up the latest case file for everyone’s data pad. He gave them a few moments to look it over before speaking up.

“Okay, you can all see that Dan’s got another meeting set up at The Doctor’s Compound on the 13th. We shook some money loose through the Ethics Committee at the Capitol, and it’s going through one of the old Swiss accounts so patron confidentiality is still in place.” 

“Isn’t Felliani still on Ethics?” Steven spoke up. Xabi shook his head.

“He was. Everyone knew he was a good friend of The Doctor’s, but he left the committee six months ago.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “You can also see that Steve’s been doing some research into the theoretical explanations for what Dan ran into the first time he went down there.” 

Another short pause as the four of them scanned the information. 

“How solid is this stuff on Gene L?” Dan asked, glancing up. 

“Depends,” Steve admitted, “The speculation we got about its source came from our street informants. Prostitutes mainly. A few pimps. One even ID’d The Doctor by name but the agent at the time figured he was just trying to buy his freedom with a big red herring. Viability is pretty much confirmed though. It can definitely be activated.”

“And the information about its effects?”

Steve shook his head regretfully.

“Shaky,” he responded, “Hearsay at best. Our street sources talked about it like it was a drug but that would be odd since genetic alterations usually have to be made early on, and once they are, they’re permanent. Theoretically Gene L enhances everything from pheromone production to…well, to physical attributes that would be beneficial for sex. It’s supposed to make a person more attractive, more desirable. Whether the stuff our sources were referring to was this Gene L or something else entirely is hard to say. The only reason we started a file on it was because the name kept coming up.”

Dan chewed on his lower lip, feeling like he maybe had gotten a few answers, but in the process had come up with a lot more questions to add to the growing list he already had. Some of them he knew he could bounce ideas off the other guys, see what they thought, but some of them he knew he’d have to figure out on his own, based on what he saw and felt and _experienced_ on this next trip down south. 

“Am I going alone again this time?” he asked after a short pause. 

“We have three agents staying nearby,” Xabi responded, “None of them are fully briefed in, but they know you’ll be inside the Compound. Codes and contact info are in your files. If, for some reason, you have to tell them about the case, you’re cleared to do so. Five or six people isn’t that much more than four and we can deal with it if need be.”

Dan nodded. He didn’t mind operating alone. In fact for this case, it was almost preferable. 

“Any other questions?” Xabi asked. 

Silence greeted him.

“Alright. Dan, wheels up at 0900 Thursday morning.”

-

Fernando wasn’t easily taken by surprise. The shock, the pain, the _humiliation_ of being forced wasn’t something that ever went away, but over the years it’d become the one thing he could expect almost every time the door to the room opened, and so surprise was something he hadn’t felt in a long time. 

He didn’t look up when the door opened perhaps an hour after one of The Doctor’s associates had brought him dinner. Part of him was glad that he hadn’t eaten too heavily, even though he’d been starving. The rest of him steeled for the inevitable onslaught. 

Footsteps, quiet and unhurried, reached his ears, and a few moments later, a pair of impeccably shined dress shoes appeared in his vision. He waited, but still no touch was forthcoming, and the tension of fear that he was usually pretty good at controlling started to wind a knot in his stomach. 

Finally he looked up. 

“Oh...” The single syllable escaped him before he could bite it back. That face, the one he remembered so well, the one he’d never expected to see, ever again. A strange aching sensation glowed to life in his gut, and it hurt, but in a way Fernando couldn’t explain, couldn’t even begin to describe. It felt new. Foreign. 

_Good._

Fingers curled at the back of his neck then, threading into his hair, and the face above him started to change, the hazel eyes beginning to glaze over. Fernando felt the warmth in his chest start to go cold, the ache turning to real pain—

And then there was a sharp intake of breath and the man’s eyes cleared, the tension in his face melting away. His fingers relaxed at Fernando’s neck and he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again and looking down at him. 

“Why do you have this effect on me?”

His voice sounded strained, but his touch was unchanged, and Fernando’s sense of foreboding eased just slightly. 

“I don’t know,” he responded quietly, “I…it’s not just you. Other people, as soon as they touch me…” He trailed off, not really sure how to continue. Was it still rape, he wondered, if he didn’t resist anymore?

“You’re the first one who’s ever…been able to resist,” he added after a few moments. At this, the other man’s eyes seemed to darken, and Fernando tightened instinctively, expecting the calm to break. 

Instead though, the man stepped back, breaking the physical connection between them. For a few moments he stood in silence. His eyes were on Fernando, but Fernando had the sense he wasn’t really seeing him, that he was thinking intensely about something. 

“How long?” the man asked eventually, and suddenly Fernando didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t know where the impulse came from, but he realized he didn’t want to see his reaction.

When he didn’t respond, the man stepped closer, but kept his hands at his sides. 

“How long has The Doctor been using you to reward his supporters?” The distaste in his voice, Fernando knew, wasn’t directed at him. The ache inside him was growing, that painfully pleasant sensation of being seen, being noticed…being cared about. 

His response was barely a whisper, but the way the other man’s face seemed to crumble told him he’d heard it loud and clear, and the relief Fernando felt at finally being heard mingled with something like regret at the effect his answer had had on the other man. 

-

“Eight years. Ever since he came of age. The Doctor rewards his benefactors and his political supporters by letting them have their way with him, and his funds skyrocketed when he brought Fernando into the picture. How much do you want to bet that The Doctor has his Gene L activated as high as it can go?”

Dan was well aware that his anger and emotion were coming through far too clearly, but damn it, he wasn’t an intelligence officer by trade and he wasn’t going to pretend to be dispassionate about this. 

“Sucker bet,” Xabi acknowledged, “The Doctor’s got power, money, influence, and more importantly the ability to manipulate genes almost at will. He doesn’t even have to coerce someone into service, he just creates him from scratch, so to speak.” He winced at the figure of speech, but it got the point across.

“Jesus,” Steven muttered, “The man’s brilliant, rich, and sick as fuck.”

“Do you have another appointment scheduled?” Xabi asked, glancing over at Dan. 

“Not yet.” 

“Do it,” Xabi said definitively, “The sooner the better. Promise as much money as you think you need to. Ethics will go with it.”

Dan nodded. Part of him didn’t want to go back unless his mission was to arrest The Doctor and/or kill him if he resisted. Most of him wanted to go back to get the intelligence they needed so the end result would be the same. 

A tiny part of him wanted to go back and just press his fingers to Fernando’s cheek and hold him until he fell asleep.

-

“Ever taken a blood sample before?” 

Dan eyed the needle and syringe with some uncertainty before reaching out and taking them from Steve. 

“Yes, sir, they taught us in the Corps, but it’s been awhile.” Steve smiled a little and rolled up his own sleeve. 

“Well it’s gotten a lot easier since then,” he assured, “Go ahead and hold the needle over my arm.” Dan did as he was told, and the miniature readout on top of the syringe gave him a detailed readout showing the network of veins and arteries in Steve’s arm. After a couple seconds it chirped and the display changed to a screen that reminded Dan of a weapon’s targeting mechanism. 

From there it was intuitive, a combination of following the directions on the display and recalling his Corps training on steady hands and needle angle. In under 30 seconds he had a satisfactory blood sample and a preliminary readout on the screen.

“You’re Vitamin D’s a little low,” he observed, handing the apparatus back to Steve. 

“Yeah, I know, got to get over to Clinical and see if they can recommend anything else besides Vitamins and stuffing myself full of tuna.” He reached over and unlocked one of the drawers under the counter of the exam room they were sitting in. The sealed, opaque bag he handed over to Dan was much heavier than one needle and syringe, and prompted a curious look from the younger man. 

“The blood sample’s the most important,” Steve said, nodding towards the bag, “It’ll confirm whether Fernando’s Gene L is activated and whether there’s anything we can do about it.”

“And the other stuff?” Dan asked, hefting the bag. 

“Even if he’s been…engineered to resist diseases, which I’d be willing to bet my life on, eight years of that kind of abuse is going to have done a lot of damage to his body,” Steve explained. Never mind his mental health, neither of them added. “I included a whole set of inoculations for mineral deficiencies, dehydration, and some of the nastier infections that no one’s figured out how to knock out yet. There’s some painkillers in there, too. And a couple tranquilizers as well.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. Steve looked steadily back at him, his expression knowing, but not accusatory. 

“With a little luck,” he said quietly, “We’ll break him out of there.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

-

It had been a long time since Fernando had been blindfolded before being led out of his room and shoved into another. After his first and only escape attempt, it seemed The Doctor had deemed it unnecessary to keep him uninformed about his surroundings. Fernando figured that this probably had more to do with the request of a “client” than it had to do with keeping him under lock and key. 

And sure enough, barely had he been pushed into the second room when rough hands grabbed him and pushed him onto his back on what felt like an unmade bed. He started to reach for the blindfold and got cracked across the face with an open hand for his effort. His arms were yanked up over his head and there was a metallic sounding clink before something cold and smooth closed around his wrists. An instinctive tug brought no give, only the sharp bite of metal into his skin. 

And then a hand slid inside the waistband of his pants.

-

Dan stood outside the door of the room he’d been directed to, mentally preparing himself to push back against the sensory overload that he was now at least marginally familiar with. It was an exhausting effort, to not give in to the sensations, the insistent pull of want and desire that seemed to flood every fiber of his being the instant he touched Fernando. The last two times it had taken him almost three full days to recover his normal energy level. 

After a few moments, he pressed his hand to the console outside the door, and it chirped in response almost instantly. The door slid open, and Dan stepped inside the room, hopeful that this time he might greet Fernando with a smile. 

By the time the door slid shut behind him, however, whatever hope he’d felt had disintegrated, and in its place was a blazing knot of rage. The images seared themselves into his memory—the crude handcuffs biting into Fernando’s wrists, the blindfold over his eyes, the pained arch of his back. 

The Doctor, kneeling between Fernando’s legs, thrusting three fingers viciously inside him. 

A tremulous groan tore from Fernando’s throat, and it took all of Dan’s training and willpower not to reel back. His next instinct was to leap across the room and break The Doctor’s neck—he knew he could do it and he wasn’t the least bit squeamish about it. 

But again, he managed to check himself. If he killed The Doctor, what then? He’d have to get Fernando out, and considering what he knew about the man, that could get very complicated very fast. And even if they somehow made it back to the safety of The Citadel, there was a very, very fine line between what constituted justifiable murder under government employment and what didn’t.

_Get ahold of yourself, Marine_ , he commanded internally. 

“Doctor,” he said out loud. The Doctor looked up, saw him, and broke into a leer. 

“Ah,” he said, “I was just preparing him for you.” Dan bit hard at the inside of his cheek to maintain his self control. It would be easy, so easy, to take two quick steps, grab his head and yank it—

“Thank you, sir. Do you mind leaving the key on your way out, though? I don’t like him tied up.” He wondered if Fernando recognized his voice, hoped, prayed that if he did, he would understand that his words weren’t his intentions. 

The Doctor looked down at Fernando, his eyes dragging up and down his body before twisting his fingers free. Dan ground his fingernails into his palm as he walked across the room and held out the key for the handcuffs. 

“You should try it,” The Doctor said, dropping the key into Dan’s hand before twisting the ring on his right hand thoughtfully around his finger, “You might like it.”

Dan managed a smile. 

“Perhaps, sir.”

He waited until the door closed, then turned around and punched in the lock code before turning back to the bed. He reached down for the blindfold first, and felt his stomach fold over itself when Fernando trembled at his touch. The first wave of arousal hit him like a freight train, but he fought it off and carefully lifted the blindfold away. 

“It’s me,” he murmured as Fernando blinked blearily up at him. A few moments passed, and then he relaxed as his vision came into focus, and Dan reached up to unlock the handcuffs. He had to pause, shake his head a couple times as he gently grasped Fernando’s arm and another wave hit him, but it was already getting easier. Fernando, cradling red wrists rubbed raw by the handcuffs, eased into a sitting position, and Dan reached down and pulled the sheet up, covering him to give him at least a modicum of modesty. 

For a few moments, they said nothing, their respective breathing—Fernando’s still slightly uneven, Dan’s shallow and controlled—the only sound. 

Then Dan curled his fingers gently at the back of Fernando’s neck, just like last time. Only this time, Fernando leaned into him, leaned until his head came to rest against the firm, solid plane of Dan’s stomach. 

And for just a few moments, Dan was able to quieten the want and desire entirely and they were just two men, alone, connected, sharing a quiet moment together.

-

It was different this time. Fingers pushing sweat-dampened hair off his forehead when they finally lay back together. Thumbs stroking reassuringly over his hipbones as the sheet fell away. The whisper of lips against the inside of his knee as fingers slid inside him. Both times before, Dan—he had asked his name, finally, and knowing it was such a small thing but it felt so significant—had been careful, restrained, but even as unversed as Fernando was in true intimacy, he could feel that this gentleness was something else. 

He arched, for once in anticipation, as Dan slipped his fingers free and replaced them with something much bigger, and he was so relaxed that Dan was fully seated inside him before he even registered the initial invasion. 

The first few thrusts were erratic, and judging by the grimace of concentration of Dan’s face, Fernando gathered it was a result of him trying to maintain his self-control. Tentatively, not sure if his touch would help, or simply make it worse, Fernando reached up and pressed his fingertips to Dan’s cheek. For a moment, Dan’s frown only deepened, and Fernando’s stomach clenched in hot, swooping disappointment, but then the frown disappeared and the grimace eased and Dan turned his head into Fernando’s touch as he pulled almost all the way out before sliding carefully back in. 

Fernando arched up, the friction delicious and deep, and Dan moved again, and again, and again, and Fernando’s hand fell back to the pillow above his head, trembling moans spilling from his lips with each thrust. 

In the throes of it all, he saw Dan’s lips, moist and parted, mere centimeters from his own. A surge of pleasure racked him, and he moaned through his own parted lips. He didn’t know who moved first. 

All he knew was that it was the mutual slide of his and Dan’s tongues that ushered them over the edge and into the aftermath. 

-

There was a gym in the basement of The Citadel, adjacent to the firing ranges. Dan didn’t use it that often—he preferred outdoor running and lifting weights in the privacy of his own apartment to treadmills and the vaguely exhibitionist aspect of working out in a gym. One of the few things he did take occasional advantage of, however, were the punching bags tucked away in one of the corners.

And if ever there was a time where he needed to hit something without it hitting back, it was now. 

In the heat of the moment, it had seemed like a good idea, a great idea even. He still wasn’t entirely sure who’d moved first, but the warmth of Fernando’s mouth against his, the strangely pleasurable sensation of tangled tongues had all felt so right at the time, a perfectly appropriate denouement to what they’d just done. 

Now, though, amongst the straight backs and squared shoulders and regimented order of The Citadel, he wasn’t quite sure what he had been thinking, what his motivation had really been. One of the first things every Marine learned was that a mission, any mission, was undertaken for the sole purpose of completing it as safely and efficiently as possible. Personal feelings, the desires for revenge or retribution or even redemption, were not acceptable motivations. 

Dan knew plenty of corpsmen who had used them anyway. But he knew such missions more often than not ended in failure, and he himself had long prided himself on the ability to both follow orders without emotionally investing in them, and to question them on a strictly practical or logistical basis when he didn’t agree with them. 

Fuck, he thought, driving a fist into the punching bag hard enough to send dull arrows of pain shooting up his arm. It had been a full week since he got back from this last mission, and as exhausted as he was, he had barely been able to sleep, his mind brimming with thoughts, memories, images, emotions. How many times had he asked himself what his real motivation had been? And how many times had he started out with “To show him…,” only to come up empty-handed at the end?

Dan grunted in frustration, crunching his fist into the punching bag again. If this wasn’t getting personally and emotionally invested in the mission, then he didn’t know what was. 

A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eye. The resulting sting only irritated him further and he unleashed a barrage of punches on the bag, until his knuckles were screaming in protest and his arms were lead-like and sluggish, but he kept on hitting, relishing the way the pain of sheer exertion edged out the emotional cacophony in his head. 

When a hand grabbed his wrist, stopping his rhythm, he almost swung around instinctively. Only lightning quick reflexes saved him from belting Xabi right across the face. 

“Dangerous thing to do, sir,” he said between breaths, “Almost clocked you one.” Xabi smiled a little.

“I trust you,” he said, and for some reason Dan thought he wasn’t just talking about the punch. 

“I read your report,” Xabi continued, “That thing about the ring was a good catch. Steven thinks it might be a tracking device, and Steve is looking into the possibility of it being some sort of genetic modulator or controller.” Dan raised an eyebrow, flexing his sore hands. 

“So it’s definitely Gene L?” 

“Pretty sure. Got the boys and girls in Clinical looking over the blood sample you brought back. Preliminary results say yes.” Dan nodded and rolled his shoulders a little, feeling the ache in them already.

“So what’s the plan then? Where do we go from here?” he asked, wiping another streak of sweat from his forehead before it could fall into his eye. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Xabi replied, “We may have you go back at least one more time, probably two.”

Dan tried not to stiffen at that, but given his current state of mind, it was a poor effort, and judging by the way Xabi eyed him, it didn’t go unnoticed. 

“This is new territory for all of us, Dan,” he said after a moment. Dan flexed his hands again, not quite meeting the older man’s eyes. 

“Yes, sir.”

Xabi’s hand came to rest on his arm again, gentler this time. 

“Dan.” Inhaling deeply, Dan reluctantly raised his eyes. Xabi offered a small smile. “This isn’t the Corps running flank ops in the Central Desert. There are no hard and fast rules in this game. You’re allowed to care. It’s part of the reason we brought you on.” 

Dan had to wonder if this was simply a mark of how good an intelligence officer Xabi was, or if he was just wearing his emotions so obviously on his sleeve.

“Yes, sir.” 

Xabi reached over and pulled a towel off a nearby railing, draped it over Dan’s shoulders. 

“Go home,” he said, and it wasn’t a suggestion, “Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sir.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Alright, Steve, hit us with everything you’ve got, let’s see if we can make some sense out of it.”

The four of them were crowded into Steven’s office, all of the conference rooms already booked with previous meetings. Steve had asked for the meeting on short notice, though, so the lack of space wasn’t really a surprise. 

“Okay, I did some digging about genetic engineering, specifically the theoretical stuff, most of which The Doctor has been involved in,” Steve started, calling up an electronic file on their respective data pads, “There was this paper that came out in this obscure journal about ten years ago that discussed the possibilities of controlling how a genetic change was expressed over time.”

“But no one picked up on it?” Xabi asked.

“At the time it was strictly theory,” Steve replied, “Or at least that’s what everyone was meant to believe.” He tapped the screen on his own data pad, and the others responded instantaneously, pulling up a new set of info.

“Eight years ago, which coincides with what we already know about Fernando, another paper came out, co-authored by The Doctor and pretty widely circulated, which discussed how some changes can themselves be engineered to kick in at a certain age. It created some controversy because of the idea of parents controlling their kids’ development and such. Still mostly theoretical. Supposedly.”

Another tap, another set of info.

“Our first file on Gene L came in six years ago, and we’ve been tracking it ever since. Four years ago there was a cursory investigation based on the stuff we were getting from our street sources, but then The Doctor cured leukemia and that was the end of that.”

Another tap, and the screens cycled to a bibliographic list.

“The guy has written on everything from methods of gel electrophoresis to the hypothetical genetics of extraterrestrial life. I picked out about five or six others that have to do with gene expression. But nothing official about Gene L, at least by name. And nothing else about controlling gene expression over time.”

A few more moments of silence passed as they all took this information in. 

“So,” Xabi said eventually, and the twinge of disappointment in his voice was about as much emotion as anyone ever heard from him, “Basically we have nothing.” 

Steve sighed and ran a hand over his face. Dan noticed for the first time that he looked tired, and it struck him that he wasn’t the only one losing sleep over this case. 

“What about the rings?” Steve asked, turning to Dan, “Was there anything distinctive about them? Anything out of the ordinary? That’s a pretty dated fashion, to be fair. Almost no one wears rings anymore.” 

“No,” Dan replied with a shake of his head, “They just looked like simple silver bands.”

“Identical?” Xabi asked. Dan shrugged, wishing he’d paid closer attention. The ring on Fernando’s hand had caught his attention mostly because the memory of The Doctor toying with his own ring as he left the room was still fresh in his mind. He had put it in his report almost as an afterthought. 

“It doesn’t really matter though, does it?” Steven spoke up, “I mean, if they’re identical or not.”

“Functionally, no,” Steve replied, “But it could be symbolic, to show…I don’t know, some sort of connection maybe?”

“Or ownership,” Dan cut in quietly, “He seems like the type, no?”

“Power and money will inflate even the tiniest egos,” Steve said in agreement, “And with the ability to manipulate genes, he can practically play god. Fernando is his…creation. His property.”

“Jesus,” Steven swore, glancing sideways at Xabi, “Please tell me Justice wouldn’t see it that way.”

“I don’t know,” Xabi replied, “Right now the High Court is about as conservative as it gets. Letter of the law and all that.”

“Isn’t the letter of the law that Fernando’s being held against his will under severe…duress, or whatever?” Dan asked, waving a tired hand in the air. He was still having trouble sleeping, and his brain was really starting to fail him at this point.

“It depends on if they see him as person or property,” Xabi replied quietly. Dan kind of felt like throwing up at that, but as sickening as it was, he knew it was true.

“Fine,” he said through slightly clenched teeth, “So what do we do?”

There was a pause. Then Steve asked quietly,

“Do you think you can get us that ring?”

-

“So…you’re working for the government. To try and get The Doctor on research ethics violations…”

It was strange. Part of Fernando was happy at the thought of The Doctor being put away in prison, even if it was only on an ethics violations charge. He wasn’t entirely sure where such a situation would leave him, but he had hope that Dan and/or the agency he was working for might handle that. 

“Because he altered my genes to…so he could…use me…”

Part of him was happy, too, at finally knowing what he’d always suspected, that there was something different about him, something that made people do things they wouldn’t normally do.

“And the ring is how he controls how much I…affect other people?”

Standing at the foot of the bed, Dan nodded silently.

“Oh…” 

Part of him, though, felt let-down. He was just a mission, he realized, a means to an end. Dan held him and touched him and moved inside him like he meant something, but in the end, he was using him, just like everyone else. 

Dan stepped closer to the bed and threaded his fingers through Fernando’s hair. There was the same moment of haziness in his eyes that signaled his struggle with the sudden bombardment on his senses that physical contact elicited, but as always, it cleared a few moments later. Dan eased him onto his back, then, and Fernando let him. He shrugged willingly out of his clothes, spread his legs readily, even moaned contentedly as Dan pressed a now-familiar finger inside him. 

But when Dan sat back and stroked himself a few times, slicking himself with his own precum, Fernando took the opportunity to turn over onto his stomach. He pretended not to hear Dan’s quiet, questioning, “Fernando?” and when the other man slid into him a few moments later, as gentle as ever, he buried his face in the pillow and told himself that this was no different, that Dan was no different. 

-

“Hey.” Dan glanced up from the pile of data pads on his desk to see Steven standing in his doorway, still in his black dress uniform courtesy of a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Intelligence and Operations. 

“Morning, sir.” Steven stepped into the small, modestly furnished office that Dan called his own. 

“When’d you get back?”

“0200, sir.” Steven frowned a little at him, and Dan was sure he could see the shadows under his eyes, but he didn’t even bother bringing a hand up to try and conceal them. There wasn’t much point, really. Xabi already knew he was struggling for sleep, and Dan would have been mightily surprised if he hadn’t mentioned that to Steven already. 

“Did he give you the ring?”

“Yeah,” Dan replied, the word coming out more like a sigh than he would have hoped. This last time he had been to The Doctor’s Compound, Fernando had been…subdued was the only word he could really come up with. A bare few words spoken that Dan could remember, almost all of them answers to questions. A certain awkwardness in his movements, though not resistance because Dan was sure he would have gone fleeing to the corners if there had been even a hint of that. 

Of course, considering what the man had been through, Dan supposed it was a miracle he spoke at all, to him, to anyone. And truly, could he expect Fernando to trust him at all? Hope, maybe, but not expect. How many times had he done this—four? Hardly a firm basis for a—

Dan mentally slapped himself. For a second there, the word “relationship” had almost popped into his head. 

_Jesus Christ_ , he thought, irritated with himself. 

And yet he kept coming back to it, to the way Fernando had repeatedly avoided his eyes, had turned his back on him, had hid his face in the pillow. It bothered him, in a way it wasn’t supposed to. 

Or maybe it was just a way he wasn’t familiar with. 

“Do you think he’ll keep your secret?” Stevie’s voice brought him back, quietly, like he knew he was interrupting Dan’s thoughts.

Dan bit his lip and rubbed a hand over his eyes. 

“I’d like to think so.”

-

“Where. Is it. You. Little. Slut.”

Fernando ground his teeth together, swallowing the expletive-laced screams that clawed at his throat with every emphasizing crack of The Doctor’s belt buckle against his bare back. He pulled futilely at the ties binding his wrists to the headboard, then had to bite down hard on his own arm as another lash fell and he felt his skin split. 

“I fucking told you, someone must have stolen it,” he exclaimed, hating the tearful, pain-edged tone to his voice. He was well-versed in silent or close-mouthed endurance, but when he had to talk through the pain, it was a lot harder to feign being unaffected. 

“No!” Another lash, another wet, splitting sensation. “Who? Who stole it?”

“I don’t know!” Part of Fernando wondered why he was doing this, why he was voluntarily subjecting himself to this when he could so easily have told Dan it was impossible, that the consequences would be too dire. 

“Liar!” Three more blows, in quick succession, and Fernando bit his arm again, this time tasting blood. It would be so easy, to just give in and tell him it was all a lie, that the ring hadn’t been stolen after all. Make up a story, any story. A prank by one of the security guards. A momentary memory lapse. The truth. Dan was just using him anyway, wasn’t he? It would be so easy.

And yet…

The Doctor’s reaction told him something in and of itself. Dan hadn’t been lying to him. There was something exceptionally important about that piece of metal that he’d almost pawned off in that ill-fated escape attempt eight, nearly nine years ago. The ring itself was innocuous. Entirely ordinary. Fernando himself had thought little of it. Until now. 

Control, Dan had said. The ability to control how he affected people, how whatever changes to his genes The Doctor had made showed up. That’s what he and whoever he was working for thought it housed. 

Knees settled on either side of his hips, a hand pawing roughly between his legs, and Fernando pressed his face into the sheets, trying to force his thoughts forward. 

_If the ring is somehow destroyed_ , he thought as The Doctor stripped his pants away and manhandled him onto his knees, _would it all stop?_

-

“Dr. Finnan, sir, I think you should take a look at this.”

“What’ve you got, Major?”

“This thing ain’t no fucking ring, sir, excuse the language. Look at the readings coming off it. Our computers don’t even recognize some of these frequencies.”

“Okay, Major, how much server space did you carve off for this?”

“Five terabytes, sir.”

“I’ll get you the authorization for six, and I’ll send Lieutenant Gerrard down to help out. Anything and everything you got, Major, and the sooner the better.”

“Yes, sir.”

-

Dan had seen a lot of things. Heads blown to pieces by bullets. Limbs severed by flying shrapnel. Human flesh bubbled and charred by napalm. 

But the angry red lash marks criss-crossing Fernando’s back and the telltale bruises on his wrists made bile rise in his throat. Guilt and rage and hurt tugged at his senses. It didn’t escape his notice that pity was not among them, and for that he was glad, because pity, he knew, would be an insult to the other man’s strength.

He pressed his fingers lightly against Fernando’s shoulder, careful to avoid the cuts there. The rush of want was almost familiar now and so was the effort it took to fight it off. The room spun briefly around him, and then he was in control again.

“Lie down,” he said quietly.

-

Fernando prostrated himself on the bed, not really sure what to expect. He heard Dan step away, into the bathroom, and for a moment he wondered if the government man was turned on by the bloodied, half-scabbed mess of his back. 

It wouldn’t be the first time, he thought. 

He heard Dan come back into the room, and he closed his eyes, waiting for whatever was to come next. 

-

Dan pressed the dampened cloth he’d retrieved from the bathroom between his hands to warm it up a bit and eased down on the edge of the bed. 

“This might hurt,” he said. He let his eyes linger on Fernando’s face, but the other man didn’t open his eyes. After a moment, he carefully laid the cloth across the reddest, rawest cut spanning the expanse of Fernando’s back. A reflexive hiss escaped his lips, and his eyes flew open.

“Sorry,” Dan murmured, not quite meeting his gaze. 

-

The coolness against Fernando’s back stung momentarily, but after a few moments it receded into an almost soothing throb, the edges of the pain dulled to mere discomfort. Dan wasn’t really looking at him, so Fernando took a moment to study him. For the first time, he noticed the dark circles around his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks, the paleness of his skin. He tried not to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they were because of him. 

He closed his eyes again, allowing himself to drift a little, and in that gray area between sleep and waking, he lost track of how many times Dan got up, took the cool, damp cloth from his back, and returned seemingly a few moments later to replace it. Once or twice he thought he opened his eyes to see Dan watching him, his expression soft around the edges, yet entirely inscrutable. He couldn’t be sure though. The discomfort in his back had eased to almost nothing, just a vague, distant burning sensation at the edge of his awareness and he was just on the edge of slipping into sleep when a thumb stroking over his brow brought him back. 

He felt warm and content, whatever thoughts he’d had about Dan and his intentions muted, and when the other man quietly asked if he wanted an injection to help protect against infection, he nodded without much thought. 

The stick of the needle and the discomfort of the antibody solution dispersing under his skin were hardly painful, but they were enough to slice through his contentment and remind him that this was real life, not some dream world where Dan cared about him as anything more than a means to a mutually beneficial end. 

Fernando pushed himself up on his elbows, fixed his gaze on a point just above Dan’s right shoulder. 

“You still need to fuck me,” he stated bluntly, wondering what the reaction would be. 

Dan looked like he’d been slapped, and Fernando’s gut twisted unexpectedly. He wasn’t expecting either of those things to happen. 

Perhaps out of apology, perhaps just because he didn’t know what to think anymore, he let Dan push him onto his back until he was kneeling between his legs, his arms braced on either side of Fernando’s head. For a moment he went still, only his eyes moving, sliding over Fernando’s face.

And then his mouth was descending on Fernando’s, cloth-covered yet unmistakable hardness pressing tantalizingly against the heat between his own spread legs, and Fernando didn’t know the word for this, but it definitely wasn’t a four-letter obscenity.


	6. Chapter 6

“So what are you saying?” Dan was running on about two hours of sleep now, and even four cups of famous Citadel coffee couldn’t make up for the decreased lack of brain function, but things were moving fast now and he wasn’t about to miss something just because he was tired. 

“The ring.” Steve was sitting at the head of the meeting room this time, Xabi and Steven seated across from Dan. “It’s a modulator. Not a controller.”

“So it doesn’t actively affect the genetic change, only the intensity of its expression?” Xabi asked. Steve nodded. Dan could see that he was readying a clarification, but he’d finally figured it out.

“Basically, if we toss it in the furnace, melt it down to junk metal, it doesn’t change anything,” he spoke up, “People still touch him and lose control. Right?” Steve nodded again, looking weary.

“As far as I can tell,” he said, “Fernando’s been like this since day one. That research The Doctor did on genetic expression over time, and engineering changes to kick in at a certain age…he was writing about Fernando the whole time. But no one put the pieces together.”

“Probably because the only people who even know he exists a) aren’t the type doing a close, analytic reading of papers in research journals and b) can barely even remember that knowledge once they leave,” Dan replied. Across the table, Steven shook his head. 

“The Doctor must have it down to a science,” he noted, “When to dial Fernando’s Gene L way up, and when to rein it back, so his benefactors know they’ve been rewarded but they don’t remember the details.”

“And to keep people from tearing him to pieces,” Xabi added quietly. 

“And if he ever wanted to take Fernando with him somewhere, he could dial the expression way down,” Steve pointed out, “And people wouldn’t actively be trying to jump him.”

“Has he ever done that?” Steven asked, glancing over at Dan, “Taken him somewhere?”

“I don’t know,” Dan said with a small shrug, “I wouldn’t be surprised. We haven’t…talked about a lot of stuff. Yet.” He winced a little at his own words, but Xabi and Steven’s smiles were anything but unkind. 

“Well with a little luck, you just might have a chance to,” Xabi said. He handed over a data pad. The file on the screen was coded black, which told Dan it was eyes only, as top secret as it got. 

“Logistical plan for breaking him out,” Steven stated, rather unnecessarily, but Dan appreciated that it was as much a statement of support as of explanation, “Issuing a warrant would only give him time to hide Fernando. And we are The Citadel after all. This ninja stuff is what we do.”

Dan quirked a smile at that and looked down to check out the plan. It was still in the works, but his eyes caught the main frame of it. Night op. One of those new helos that ran almost silent. Laser cut the polarized window. Clear the room without ever unlocking the door. It was the stuff of 21st century spy movies, Dan thought with an inward smile. Funny how much they actually got right when it came to futuristic technology. 

“Where will he stay?” he asked, glancing up. 

“Ninth floor,” Steven replied, “The old operations team used to put up there before the new base was finished at Canal.”

“Wait a minute, I’ve seen those things,” Dan started to protest, “They’re not much better than the prison he’s—“

“Easy, Dan,” Xabi said with a small smile, “We might be Army pukes but we’re not completely wasted at hospitality. We expanded the space so it’s livable for two people, one way windows on two sides, upgraded everything, including security, and two separate escape plans.”

“…oh.” Surprises weren’t usually a welcome thing in the Intelligence business, but this one, Dan thought he could deal with.

“It’s meant to be temporary,” Xabi continued, “Steve’s got a team at Clinical working on that blood sample you brought back. If anyone can find a way to reverse the changes The Doctor made, it’s them. Until then, though, this is the safest place we think he could be.”

“Yes, sir.” Dan couldn’t think of any other way to respond. Part of him was relieved beyond words that finally, finally they were going to take action. Part of him was disappointed that the plan, for the moment, involved no action against The Doctor himself. Part of him looked forward to the secrecy and stealth, the adrenaline rush of a nighttime extraction operation.

And part of him, part of him wondered if this could be a new beginning for him and Fernando, or if it would simply be the beginning of the end. 

-

“Madrid again?” 

Dan smiled as Pepe let him into the armory. 

“Don’t miss much, do you?” Pepe winked good-naturedly and led Dan first to the revolvers. Familiarity allowed Dan to pick up a Beretta 98 and CZ78 with only a quick check to make sure the chambers were empty and the safes on. 

“You ever been on one of these Stalker series helos?” Dan asked, moving on to the personal defense weapons and submachine guns. 

“Nah,” Pepe replied, “Been told it’s eerie though, flying through the air with almost no sound.”

“Yeah,” Dan agreed, resting a hand on an M18, one of the few assault rifles he’d gotten really familiar with during his time in the Marines. “Recommend?”

“Pop one of those on there and you’re set,” Pepe said, plucking what looked like a miniature, double-ended telescope off the table behind him and handing it over. “U.S. Army issue Winger telescopic sight, 200 yards, give or take, and night vision like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Well, the Americans do get the occasional thing right, don’t they?” Dan asked rhetorically, attaching the sight with practiced ease and checking it briefly. “I need a glass-cutter too.” Pepe turned to the shelf next to him, and after a few seconds retrieved a tiny, black, dome-shaped gadget. It reminded Dan vaguely of some weird, futuristic sort of insect, complete with a tiny square appendage sticking out the back for a tail, but he knew inside it housed a laser powerful enough to slice through even the hardest elements on earth like melted butter. 

“Anything else?” Pepe asked as Dan packed his items into a black, non-descript bag.

“I don’t know…got any luck lying around?” Dan asked, zipping the bag up and shouldering it. 

“Sorry mate, fresh out,” Pepe replied with a grin, “Had a newbie this morning, forgot to safe his weapon, damn thing went off and nearly blew my foot off. I think I used up my luck for the next, oh, ten years or so.”

“Hell,” Dan observed, “If that’s the kind of luck you’ve got, I think I’ll pass anyways.”

“Oho, alright, I see how it is. No more guns for you, Mr. Agger.” 

“Good luck telling Xabi that.”

Pepe laughed and herded Dan back toward the elevator, making sure to pick up a few extra ammunition magazines on the way. Before Dan left though, the armorer grew serious. 

“Stay safe, alright?” he said. Dan nodded in acknowledgment, one soldier to another. To a civilian, he might have expressed confidence, a bit of bravado even. And to be fair, he was confident. Bad back notwithstanding, he knew, as a soldier was supposed to, that he was fully qualified and fully capable of completing this mission. 

He also knew, though, that any mission carried with it inherent risks and dangers, and the only antidote to coming home in a body bag was to be vigilant, and cautious, and to know that he wasn’t invincible. Pepe’s words were as much a reminder as they were an emphatic gesture of support.

“See you on the other side.”

-  
“Eagle Command, this is Night Stalker 5, beginning approach into Saber Command airspace, over.”

As the helicopter winged almost silently over the sprawling megalopolis that had once been the separate cities of Madrid and Paris, Dan stood by the as-yet unopened side door and watched the lights skimming by 5,000 feet below. His mind was largely focused on the mission at hand, but he spared a thought for the thousands of lives arcing and twining and twisting and turning down on the ground. 

“Copy, Eagle Command, awaiting link-up from Saber now. Will advise when link is made, over.”

The sense of detachment that Dan had always felt from civilian, “normal” life as a Marine had increased tenfold with his assignment to The Citadel, and being up here just seemed to drive that point home. Sometimes he wondered what he would have ended up doing if he hadn’t enlisted, if he had gone to college like his parents had wanted him to. 

“Copy Saber Command, Night Stalker 5 reads you loud and clear, repeat, Night Stalker reads you loud and clear, over.”

Maybe he would have gone into business, like so many of his friends had. It was the way of the world now, a largely comfortable and generally lucrative profession. Maybe he would have been a professor, a teacher of something like military history. Maybe he would have been a musician, building on his early, though largely private interests in instruments and composition. His grades had been good, good enough to get into almost any school either at home or abroad. He could have done almost anything.

“Saber Command, Night Stalker 5 will commence insertion run in five minutes, repeat, insertion run to commence in five minutes, over.”

_But then you wouldn’t have met Fernando._ And there it was, somehow Dan’s thought processes had come all the way back around to Fernando, just as they had done for the past five days leading up to this mission. Even as focused as he’d been on every little detail of everything from the timing of the helicopter runs down to the color of his clothing, the thought of the man he was doing this for had been ever present, sometimes barely visible at the edge of his consciousness, but still there. Training dictated that this kind of intrusion should bother him, should tell him that something was amiss, either externally or perhaps even internally. But training was different than real life. Xabi had said there were no hard and fast rules in this game. 

“Saber Command this is Night Stalker 5. Commencing insertion run now. Weapons tight, repeat, weapons tight. Estimated time to drop-off, three minutes, over.”

He was allowed to care. 

And, he admitted to himself as the helicopter began a stomach-churning rapid descent, he did. 

-

He was dreaming, and he knew it. But like so many other things, he couldn’t make it stop. Hands on his legs, his body, his face, pushing inside, pulling him apart. Faces that he recognized, and some that he didn’t, The Doctor, Dan, the man who’d fucked him with his own cock and a toy at the same time, the woman who’d ridden him while her husband fucked his mouth. His limbs felt sluggish and slow, like he was swimming in molasses, and he kept trying to tell them to stop, but his voice wouldn’t work, even though he could have sworn he was screaming at the top of his lungs. 

“ _Fernando_ ,” someone said, he didn’t know who, “ _Fernando. Fernando. Wake up_.”

His vision was fading out, the sensations in and around him dulling. 

“ _Fernando_. Fernando.”

Like being dunked in a bucket of cold water, Fernando jolted into wakefulness, his eyes snapping open, deep, gasping breaths rattling in his chest. He blinked twice, and started to push himself up on his elbows, then froze.

Someone was standing next to the bed. 

Still only half-awake, he couldn’t quite stop the sudden wave of panic that rose up inside him and he scrabbled back on the bed, a frustrated whimper escaping his lips when his legs got caught in the sheets. 

“Hey, hey, easy, it’s me…” The figure next to the bed crouched down, one hand grasping lightly onto Fernando’s upper arm, and when he finally got a good look at the other person’s face, he felt every muscle in his body relax.

“Dan,” he sighed, going almost slack with relief. For a moment he allowed himself to breathe deeply, letting the rush of adrenaline fade and the jackhammer thud of his heart decrease. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked when he thought his voice wouldn’t waver. It did, but Dan didn’t seem to mind. He offered a small smile and pulled his hand back to reach for the bag slung over his shoulder. 

“Breaking you out of this hellhole,” he answered, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. Fernando blinked at him, suddenly noticing that he wasn’t wearing his usual trousers and dress shirt or suit jacket, but had on black, military-issue fatigues instead. 

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” 

Dan pulled out a few things from his bag and set them on the floor next to him.

“Like a heart attack,” he replied, “’Copter makes another pass in 20 minutes so we need to be on the roof in 19. Any chance someone will come by and interrupt this little party?”

Fernando glanced at the door. The tiny digital timer above the console read 02:45. He couldn’t remember anyone ever having paid him a visit after midnight and before breakfast at 8. 

“Highly unlikely,” he responded, “Dan—“ Even though he was hopeful, happy even at the prospect of getting out of this place and never looking back, there was still the issue of how he affected people and what if—

“Sshh.” Dan’s fingers curled at the back of his neck in a now-familiar gesture of reassurance. Fernando looked up at him, almost furtively. Had his stomach always done that jumpy, squirmy thing when Dan touched him before?

“I know…I know this is too much to ask right now,” Dan said quietly, eyes on his, “But I need you to trust me that we’ve taken every precaution, and made every arrangement. I’m going to be the only one within fifty feet of you the entire time, and I have shoot-to-kill license for anyone who tries for forty-nine.”

There was this tightness in Fernando’s chest and throat that he didn’t understand. It made it hard for him to breathe. It was like an invisible fist squeezing his heart and his lungs, his entire respiratory system. His eyes started to burn. It hurt.

And yet he didn’t want it to stop. 

“Okay,” he whispered over the tightness, “Okay.” 

Dan smiled a little. 

“Okay,” he repeated.

-

Even through the ever-present thrum of arousal that touching Fernando brought on, Dan found that the rush of adrenaline induced by actually engaging in this kind of ninja-esque mission sharpened his focus. He found the tracking device, embedded in the soft skin of Fernando’s underarm, and a shot of novacain plus a small, almost surgical incision guaranteed that whoever was following the device would “know” that Fernando was still in his room. 

He expected the hardest part to be the ascent from the window up to the roof, but as he watched Fernando shimmy easily up the rope, barely even needing to use his legs for leverage, he decided his worry had been wholly misplaced. 

“I haven’t been outside in almost two years,” Fernando commented, rather matter of factly, as Dan crouched down next to him, awaiting the second pass of the helicopter. 

“What?” 

“Two years ago, I tried to leave on my own.” He shivered a little in the wind, and Dan regretted the oversight of a simple jacket or sweatshirt. “I’m…” He trailed off then. 

“You’re…?” Dan prompted gently, but Fernando just shook his head a little, and Dan didn’t press him. He turned his gaze skyward, and two minutes later, the dark, strangely silent shape of the helicopter blotted out the stars above them. 

-

It wasn’t until the helicopter had safely lifted away from The Compound and they were flying over the city that Fernando finished his sentence. He hadn’t wanted to jinx things, bring bad luck when he was so close, so close to getting away. Now, he watched the lights sliding by in endless shapes and rows beneath him, Dan’s figure a protective, but not overwhelming presence near his shoulder. 

“I’m looking forward to seeing the sun again.”


	7. Chapter 7

It was a strange sensation, waking up with softness and warmth all around him. For a few moments, Fernando kept his eyes closed, uncertain as to whether he was dreaming or not, but when his other senses came fully awake and the sensations didn’t fade, he let himself look. 

The room around him was empty and dark, the shades drawn and the lights off. But even without light he could see that this was nothing like the sterile, feelingless walls he’d known all of his adult life. There was a chair in the corner, oversized with huge, rounded arms that Fernando imagined would be comfortably soft. Next to it there was a round table with a lamp, and next to that, a window. Fernando stared at the window for a long moment. For years, the only sun he’d seen had been a faint, greasy dot behind the polarized windows in the room The Doctor kept him in. He hardly dared to believe that he could actually see the rays of sunlight filtering under the drawn shades. When that, too, didn’t disappear, he rolled carefully out of bed and approached the window, then drew the shades back.

Even through the glass, the sun was bright and bold and brilliantly, stunningly beautiful. Around it the sky was cerulean and crystal clear, and from his vantage point, Fernando could see, off in the distance, the distinct needles of skyscrapers jutting up from the horizon. Closer in, trains and local transports whizzed by, stripes of bright orange and yellow and red splashed across their sides. If he squinted, he could just make out the figures of people moving about on the platforms.

This was a world that he had always known existed, had even been allowed to experience at times during his childhood, but had then been brutally deprived of as an adult. 

He wondered if he’d ever really be part of it.

“Hey.” A familiar voice and an old-fashioned knuckle rap on the door announced that he was no longer alone. He turned around, and Dan offered a tentative smile from the doorway. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Dan walked across the room, joining Fernando at the window. Fernando didn’t know where he’d spent the night, but clearly wherever he’d been he hadn’t gotten much rest. His eyes were weary and red, the shadows around them if possible even more pronounced than before, and when he came to a stop next to Fernando, he seemed to sway a little. 

“You look tired,” Fernando observed carefully, quietly. It was all so new, this realization that he was safe, protected…cared for. It emboldened him and made him intensely self-conscious all at the same time.

“Ah, I always look like this when I do a night op,” Dan replied, gesturing casually towards his face, “I’m fine, I just need a couple days to recover.” He paused, then glanced back over his shoulder towards the door. “I uh…I brought you some breakfast, or well—“ he glanced at his watch, “Lunch, actually. If you feel up for it?”

As if on cue, Fernando felt his stomach growl a demand for food. Dan smiled a little, apparently having heard it, and gestured towards the door. 

“Come on. I brought two plates.”

-

“You didn’t sleep last night.”

“Thanks, Finnan. I knew that already.”

“Because you couldn’t? Or because you didn’t want to?”

“Either. Both.”

“You know that the 9th floor has security that rivals military missile silos, right?”

“Sure. But even those are hackable. And besides…”

“Besides…?”

“…I’m already inside, aren’t I?”

“You’re worried you might lose control?”

“I’m human, just like everyone else. Take my training away and I’m not even that bright of one. You do the math.”

“Did the math a long time ago on you, Dan, and it adds up to way more than you think it does. What you need is a good dose of sleep and a way to undo whatever The Doctor did to Fernando.”

“Yeah. Great. Mission impossible, take one.”

“Here. Take these. Non-habit forming sleep aids. One before bed every night for a week. You work on that part, I’ll work on the other part until I find a way or I’m dead on the floor in Clinical. Deal?”

“You’re one in a million, Finnan.”

“Love you too, Marine. Go get some rest.”

-

“Stevie?”

“…mmmhh…”

“Stevie.”

“…five more minutes, Alonso. Fuck morning PT…”

Xabi chuckled a little at the throwback to his and Steven’s academy days, then reached down to grasp the shoulders of Steven’s slumped form. 

“Come on, Lieutenant,” he urged, shaking lightly, “It’s unbecoming of an officer to sleep on the job.” Head still buried in his arms on his desk, Steven groaned a few incomprehensible words, then shifted so Xabi caught the last half of the sentence.

“…don’t court martial me, but please, fuck off.” 

Xabi just chuckled again at his former roommate’s typical sleep-induced grumpiness and shook his shoulders again. After a few moments, Steven reluctantly raised his head, rubbing his hands over his face, then shoving them through his hair with an emphatic “fuck!” 

“You guys are just dropping like flies,” Xabi commented, “Dan looks like he’s straight off the cast of ‘The Walking Dead’ and now you.” Steven groaned again, pulling off a few post-it notes that had stuck to his arms. 

“I’ll tell you, mate, it’s sickening reading all this glowing commentary about how brilliant and wonderful The Doctor is when we know what he’s been doing behind closed doors,” he said, “All these pictures with kids whose leukemia he cured…Christ. And he’s done a damn good job of covering his ass, too. Pays his taxes, gives to charities, the whole nine yards.” He shook his head and made a disgusted noise.

“Fernando made him virtually untouchable,” he noted after a moment, “The perfect bribe, so to speak. No one’s going to reveal their ‘activities,’ especially a bunch of rich, married businessmen and women. And even if someone did, it becomes The Doctor, the curer of leukemia, versus a greedy, slimy suit. Doctor wins every time.”

“And now?” Xabi asked, walking back around the desk to take a seat across from the other man. “Any noise in the media yet?”

“Nothing,” Steven replied, “Not even a police report for a break-in.”

“Figures,” Xabi observed, “Even a break-in report might get a reporter digging for info, and reporters can be even worse than we are when it comes to bending rules.” Steven smirked a little at that.

“Better than even money our little operation will poke a big hole in his funding,” he said after a moment, “Might force some maneuvering on his part, and a big name like him will hit the media for sure.

“But it could take some time for stuff to shake loose,” he concluded.

Xabi raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe we can help it along.”

-

Standing on the roof of The Citadel, watching Fernando’s face as he gazed out at the impending sunrise, Dan decided that the slight security risk of bringing Fernando outside the ninth floor was well worth it. 

It had been a week now, a week of watching Fernando’s health for any ill effects, of forcing himself to let go of his own worries and sleep a full eight hours every night, of checking in daily with Steve down in the lab and hearing nothing but requests for patience. Even with a relatively good amount of rest, Dan could feel his patience and expectations, set perhaps a little too high by the initial euphoria of success, wearing down. 

And when he’d walked into the ninth floor quarters this morning, he’d seen on Fernando’s face that he wasn’t the only one. 

It was cool up here on the roof, and breezy, and it didn’t escape Dan’s notice when Fernando tucked his hands in the pockets of one of the pairs of slightly ill-fitting trousers he’d been given. 

“Here,” he said quietly, sliding his own jacket off his shoulders and holding it out. 

Their hands brushed as Fernando took the proffered garment. It was the first time since Fernando had arrived at The Citadel, and though the rush of want that filled Dan’s veins was familiar, it was also unwelcome. He wanted to be done with this. He wanted to be able to touch the other man without feeling the constant urge to hold him down and rut into him. The entire week, he’d avoided touching Fernando at all, simply not wanting to feel what he did to him, even though he knew he was capable of controlling it. 

It struck him that this was, perhaps, intensely selfish. Now, maybe more than ever, he thought, Fernando needed reassurance, and just because he was tired of exercising self-control, he was withholding physical contact, that most basic of forms of reassurance and affection. 

_Fuck_ , he thought to himself, glancing over at Fernando again. The sun was almost fully risen now, the golden fingers of its rays stretching all the way to where they were standing, gracing the curves of Fernando’s face, touching his lips, caressing his forehead. 

Dan ached to do the same. 

Fernando turned his head, saw Dan watching him and offered a tentative smile. 

“It’s beautiful, no?” he asked, inclining his head towards the horizon. Dan forced himself to look at the horizon as well, but his mind still saw Fernando.

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, “It is.”

-

“Got anything, Steve?”

“Hey, Xabi. Yeah, maybe. See this? It’s Gene L.”

“From Fernando?”

“Yeah. The sample Dan took. We’re just about to have a crack at knocking it out with another nonfunctioning sequence.”

“Great. Can I watch?”

“Have a seat.”

“Thanks. What sequence are you trying to stick in there?”

“It’s one they use for some knock-outs, although it’s not as common. It’s totally benign, doesn’t appear to have any weird effects or anything.”

“And if it works?”

“…if it works, then we do it five more times to make sure it’s solid, and then…then it’s up to Fernando. Knocking out genes in a grown man is a lot different than doing it in a test tube.”

“Has anyone ever done it before?”

“Sure, with other genes, and with varying degrees of success. The technology’s pretty amazing, but it’s no match for the stuff human physiology can throw at you.”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, sequence insertion is initiated…should take about 60 seconds to spit out an initial result…couple hours before we know whether it’ll actually stick.”

“That quick, huh? It was still about 12 hours when I was in the SMS Track at post-grad.”

“Oh how times change.”

“Too true. By the way, prerogative of being case leader: how much sleep have you been getting lately?”

“Well, sir, I am a behavioral scientist.”

“Point taken.”

“Okay…98% match. Anything above a 90 almost always sticks. This is good, Xabi. Really good.”

“Like how good?”

“Like if the other tests come back the same, we could do this for real first thing tomorrow morning.”

-

The staircase leading back down to the ninth floor was, technically, an unsecured one, but almost no one used it, and especially at this early hour, Dan expected it to be deserted. It was this expectation that led him to let Fernando walk through the door ahead of him. 

-

Even the fastest reflexes in the world wouldn’t have been enough. The security guard was standing directly on the other side of the door, and Fernando’s first step took him right into the man. 

There was an agonizing second of silence that seemed to stretch forever. 

Then a meaty hand closed around Fernando’s neck, yanking him around and shoving him bodily against the wall of the stairwell, and Fernando clutched helplessly at the wrist even as despair sapped whatever fight he might have had in him.

-

It wasn’t training that propelled Dan into the stairwell like a shot. It wasn’t training that twisted the security guard’s arm behind his back until he screamed and let go of Fernando. It wasn’t training that shoved the man to the ground and put a knee at the back of his elbow to break his arm. 

It was, however, training, that stayed the final blow. The tiny part of his rational mind that wasn’t red-misted and sky high on an adrenaline rush screamed for restraint, and in the last moment before the bone snapped, much like the last moment before he became just another one of Fernando’s “visitors,” he heard it, listened to it, and obeyed. 

Frozen silence gripped the stairwell, broken only by Dan’s harshly uneven breathing. 

After a few seconds that felt more like a few years, Dan pulled his knee away and pushed the guard down on his stomach before replacing his knee, this time in the small of his back, and this time to hold instead of break. His heart thudded against his ribcage and the blood was rushing at hurricane force in his ears, and part of him still wanted to grab the guard’s head and smash his face into the concrete floor, but that part was getting smaller with every passing second.

As hateful as what the guard had been about to do was, if his own experience was anything to go by, Dan knew the man probably had next to no idea what had just happened. 

“Name, rank, ID #,” Dan ordered as steadily as he could, glancing up at Fernando at the same time and tilting his head towards the descending staircase. Fernando took the hint immediately and headed down the stairs. Dan waited until he heard the secure door to the quarters open and close before easing the pressure of his knee on the guard’s back. 

“What the hell is all this about?” the guard—Ramos, he had said his name was—asked, sounding more confused than angry as Dan released him entirely and got to his feet. 

“You don’t want to know,” Dan muttered, already halfway to the staircase.

-

Fernando stood by the window of his bedroom on the ninth floor, arms crossed resolutely over his chest, lower lip caught firmly, almost painfully between his teeth. His back was stiff, promising an ache from being hurled against the wall of the stairwell, but he made no move to ease it. He had endured far worse in the past, and his thoughts, for the moment, were elsewhere.

What if there was no way to fix him, no way to undo the changes The Doctor had wrought? He'd spend the rest of his life isolated and imprisoned, wanted, in a way that so many people seemed to think was a blessing, but in reality was a curse beyond imagination. Watching the world pass him by. Four walls and a few windows to see out the rest of his days. Rare breaths of fresh air that always carried a risk factor. What kind of life was that, he asked himself?

And he'd have no one. No one would stay with him, not even Dan, because...

Because in contrast to everyone else, Dan cared. And Dan cared so much that he was pushing away, putting up walls. Fernando wasn't stupid. Despite Dan's nonchalance, he knew that the other man's lack of sleep was, at least in large part, due to the control he had to exercise over himself any time they touched or were even in close proximity. It wasn't arrogance--Fernando longed for a hand on his shoulder, a hand at the back of his neck, and so often in the past, Dan had provided that. But now he could see that Dan's approach, consciously or not, had changed. 

He couldn't really blame him, could he? To constantly have to be in tight control of every action, every emotion, every thought process had to be exhausting. Fernando knew he couldn't begrudge Dan the need for at least some sort of normal functionality. 

But it wasn't fucking fair. The one person who had ever treated him like he mattered, like he was worth something, like his pain was important enough to be stopped. 

The one person who maybe, just maybe, Fernando was learning to feel something for. 

And he couldn't even touch him. Because of who he was. Because something in his very genetic makeup reduced people to base, primal feelings of lust, and Dan, by virtue of actually being a good person, didn't want to constantly harbor those feelings. So he pushed back, pushed away. Didn't touch him, much less approach anything even remotely resembling intimacy.

Understandable. Admirable even.

And yet...

Fernando had to wonder at how fucked up everything was that he'd spent his entire life wishing that people would stop touching him, fighting them to stop them taking from him whatever they wanted, praying he'd spend the night alone. And now all he wanted was to touch and be touched, hold and be held, fall asleep to Dan's breathing and wake up to his hazel eyes. 

Blood flooded into Fernando's mouth, irony and hot. He swiped angrily at his now-bitten lip and the resulting red streak on his hand did nothing except remind him how inherent this whole thing was to him, his own body, who he was.

-

A burst of sharp, staccato rapports filled the otherwise empty firing range in the basement of The Citadel, followed by the metallic tinkle of empty shell casings hitting the cement floor. A mechanic winding noise filled the air, like a conveyor belt, and a paper target with one, irregular shaped hole through the kill zone fluttered to a halt in booth number 9. 

Dan eyed the testament to his accuracy--ten shots inside an area the size of a nickel--with impassivity. Then he touched the console by his right elbow, and as a new paper target slid into place 100 yards down range, he discharged the spent magazine from the Smith & Wesson Model 15 in his hands and loaded a new one. The console beeped at him to indicate readiness, and Dan breathed in and out once, twice, brought the pistol up in a relaxed but firm grip and squeezed off five of the ten rounds. He lowered the pistol and looked down, breathed again, then brought it back up and squeezed off the second half of the magazine. The paper target that slid up to greet him five seconds later was even better than the previous one, barely a hint of two rounds, never mind ten. Dan stared at it for a long moment, then hit the console again.

The routine, the rhythm, the precision of this was supposed to be giving him some sense of order, some sense of calm. Instead his mind was insistent on running around in the same circles it had been since the morning. Even as he loaded another magazine into the S&W, in his mind he saw himself walking into the ninth floor quarters on slightly wobbly legs, the adrenaline bleeding off him in waves. He saw Fernando standing there, heard himself ask if the other man was alright. He saw Fernando stepping into his personal space, tentatively touching his shoulder, asking the same of him. 

The console beeped. Dan brought the pistol up, breathed, and fired.

He saw himself pulling violently away, furious, almost sick with the sensation of desire. He saw Fernando's stricken face, heard his own curse of self-directed frustration. He saw himself all but stumbling out, staggering to the bathroom on the eighth floor and throwing up until there was nothing left in his stomach. 

Breathe...shoot.

And underneath it all, this burning, gnawing want that was so much different, so much more painful than the physical desire Fernando induced in him. Wanting not to push and pull and grab and thrust, but protect and defend and keep safe...

Perfect target. Ten rounds inside the space of one. 

...and touch and hold and kiss...

Console. New target. Breathe. Shoot.

...and gentle into sleep...

Breathe. Shoot.

...and love.

Perfect.


	8. Chapter 8

“What’s shaking?”

Steven handed a data pad across his desk to Xabi. The first lieutenant took it, and after a quick look, glanced up with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

“It’s kind of fun playing reporters at their own game sometimes, isn’t it?”

Steven rolled his eyes, but not without a smile as well.

“Cole already thinks I’m an idiot. Falsely feeding his ego while using him to smoke The Doctor out? Yeah, it’s pretty satisfying.” 

“So we’ve got a reporter at The Daily who thinks he’s running around with this classified info about a break-in at The Doctor’s compound,” Xabi clarified, glancing at the data pad again.

“Well I never used the word ‘classified,’” Steven pointed out, “The guy’s dumb like a fox. He knows if I didn’t say it, he can run straight to his publisher and make a headline out of whatever I gave him.”

Xabi chuckled a little and set the data pad down.

“He won’t of course,” Steven added, “He’ll sniff around, do some digging first.”

“Which is exactly what we want,” Xabi said with a nod. “And added bonus that he thinks he’s getting one over on us.” Steven snorted. 

“The day he gets one over on us, I’ll fucking retire.”

Xabi huffed out a quiet laugh. 

“The Daily has pretty big circulation,” he noted after a moment, “The other media ought to pick it up pretty soon. When do you think it’ll make it to the front page?”

“A week? Two at most,” Steven replied with a shrug, “Cole is a douchebag, but he’s got a hell of a network when it comes to getting stories. That’s why I dropped the info in his lap rather than Lucas’. Lucas is too honest of a journalist for that kind of stuff. Old-school.”

“Even though he’s younger than both of us.”

“Yeah, but he’s from South America. Just a few years ago even a hint of corruption there could get you kneecapped and killed. Not saying the coups were a good thing, but the rebels did get a few things right.” Xabi smiled again. As always, Steven’s awareness of history and current events far exceeded his own. 

“Any more word from Steve and Clinical?” Steven continued after a short pause. 

“Yeah, they were just heading into a third test when I talked to them about half an hour ago,” Xabi replied, “Two more successful ones and they’re good to go.”

“Talked to Dan and Fernando yet?” 

“No. Pepe said that Dan’s down in the firing range double-tapping paper bad guys like his life depends on it though, so I think the sooner the better.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” They were both pragmatists, they had to be. Military and intelligence life didn’t exactly allow for dreams and idealists. Steven had just always been the quicker of them to speak up.

“…I don’t know,” Xabi sighed, sagging a little, “I don’t…I don’t know.”

Steven didn’t speak for a moment. Being pragmatic didn’t mean you always assumed the best, but it also didn’t mean that you knew how to react when things didn’t go well. 

“Come on,” he said eventually, getting to his feet, “Let’s go down to Clinical. At least we can pretend we’re being useful there.”

-

Fernando expected it to be hard, impossible even, to sit in an enclosed space with three other people, two of whom he didn’t know. Perched on the edge of the slightly worn couch in the front room of his quarters, he watched Dan usher two men, both in military dress uniforms, through the door. His interactions with Dan since the morning had been brief, intermittent and stilted, but it didn’t escape his notice that even in this small space, Dan kept himself between Fernando and their visitors the entire time. 

The two men took seats across from the couch, and Dan eased down next to Fernando. Their shoulders touched, and Fernando heard Dan inhale sharply. He half-expected the other man to pull away, and when he didn’t, he glanced sideways. Dan almost-not-quite smiled back at him, and Fernando felt the knot of apprehension in his gut ease just a little. 

The two men introduced themselves, the taller one as Xabi, and the other as Steve. Xabi said he was a lieutenant, and Steve said he was a doctor. It was a small thing, but the way Xabi pronounced his name, the way the rolled ‘r’ and the deliberateness of the vowels sounded so natural somehow eased Fernando’s anxiety further. 

It was Steve, though, who leaned forward and spoke the magic words.

-

The gene therapy center in The Citadel’s Clinical and Medical Sciences Department was, in contrast to the rest of the department’s sterile, white-walled starkness, a warmly lit, almost homey addition built on to the building’s western wall. Dan knew that Clinical was one of the few departments that operated directly with the general public, specializing in genetic treatments and therapies of various types, and he guessed that was the reason for the noticeably friendlier façade. Coalition military medical establishments were some of the best in the world—Dan could well attest to that—but they didn’t generally go out of their way to be pretty. 

Steve, ten feet ahead of them at Dan’s quiet, but unequivocal request, led them past the receptionist and into the back. The surroundings here were slightly more clinic-like—consoles and instruments lining the walls, imposing, glass-walled chambers set like octagonal telephone booths at the end of each partially enclosed room. Even so, the designers had gone to the trouble of giving the walls a neutral, beige tone instead of the typical medical white, and the lighting wasn’t nearly as harsh as it was in the general clinic. Dan figured that was probably because the work done here was on such a miniscule scale that lighting didn’t matter. 

He wasn’t nervous. Not really. He trusted Steve, and by extension, anyone Steve trusted to work with him. And it was, in theory, a simple procedure. Geneticists routinely knocked out other genes with this same process, with the same non-functioning sequence even. It was about as uncomplicated as genetic engineering came—insertion of one sequence into another. One step. Simple. And Steve had said every one of their tests had come back a complete success.

Of course Steve had also said there were risks, risks not even the best geneticist could predict, because everyone’s body and nervous system and genetic make-up was different, and one could never know exactly how a particular individual would react to a genetic change that worked in the theoretical setting of a test tube, and Gene L wasn’t a gene anyone had ever tried knocking out before—

He wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t.

And then there was the whole other issue of what happened afterward. If it worked, which he hoped with everything in him that it did, there was no doubting that, but if it worked, he knew things would change. With time, and with coaxing that Dan knew he’d have to provide, Fernando would learn how to, if not trust, then at least function around, socialize, and spend time with other people. 

And selfishly, childishly, Dan wondered where that would leave him. Even without contact-induced want, he could see Fernando would turn heads, attract attention. What were the odds that this…connection they had now would continue once the extenuating circumstances that had brought them together were eliminated?

Still. He knew any uncertainty on that front was far preferable to the alternatives, which ranged from the knock-out simply being ineffective to Fernando suffering any number of complications and/or illnesses. He wanted, hoped, prayed that this worked, that this would all be over, so he could finally touch Fernando without having to steel himself first, and face exhaustion afterwards. And if that contact ended up being handshakes and incidental shoulder brushes instead of twined fingers and nested bodies, he’d just have to deal with it.

Dan forced himself to stop thinking about it. It had been easier, he realized, when he was just trying to convince himself he wasn’t nervous. 

“Here we are.” Steve stopped at the last room at the end of the corridor and stepped back, hand extended. 

-

Fernando wasn’t worrying about the risks. If his hair fell out, or he lost his vision, or he contracted some unknown illness, he would deal with it. Sickness, disability, pain—these didn’t scare him. 

Being isolated, locked up, forgotten. That was what scared him. And he didn’t need anyone to tell him how real a possibility those things were, if The Doctor’s modifications were left unchanged. The moment Steve had said, definitively, that they could undo the changes, they could fix him, his mind had already been made up. He was not going to live the rest of his life a prisoner, and if he had to pay a high price for his freedom, then he’d do so gladly. 

“This way, please, Fernando.” 

-

It took all of two minutes. Two minutes of an entirely invisible process. Dan expected it to feel like two years, but a few breaths, a few periods of darkness as he closed his eyes against the almost overwhelming combination of anticipation and apprehension, and then Steve was saying it was done, and the initial reading showed a fully successful knock-out. 

He didn’t move as Fernando stepped out of the glass chamber and closed the distance between them. He felt suddenly awkward, unsure of what to do with his hands, how to stand, whether his expression looked as jumbled as he felt. 

And then Fernando was standing in front of him, and Steve had somehow managed to slip away without being noticed, and the only words he could muster were a hushed question. 

“So did it really work?”

Fernando’s only response was to hold out his hand.


	9. Chapter 9

For one, horrible, heart-stopping second when Dan’s fingers touched his own, Fernando thought it had all gone wrong. The other man inhaled sharply, like he always had done before, his hand going still against Fernando’s, and Fernando waited for him to pull back, eyes glazed, brow creased with concentration. 

But then he let his breath out, his fingers sliding between Fernando’s, and there was no haze in his eyes, no furrow across his forehead. He looked down at their joined hands, slowly, almost disbelievingly, then lifted his gaze back up, and seeing that it was still clear sent knee-weakening relief flooding through Fernando’s veins. 

“Dan,” he breathed, trying to smile over the sudden swells of emotion. He felt at once free and euphoric and intensely vulnerable and he wanted—needed—Dan to touch him, hold him, reassure him, anchor him. 

“Dan.”

Like he had read his mind, Dan reached up, almost tentatively, and pressed his fingertips against Fernando’s cheek. It was strange that it should feel so intimate, considering everything else they’d done, but Fernando felt his skin tingle warmly under Dan’s touch, and the slight quirk at the edges of Dan’s lips told him that the blush coloring his cheeks hadn’t gone unnoticed. 

“Is this alright?” Dan asked quietly, his thumb brushing the corner of Fernando’s mouth. Fernando nodded, and the points of fingertips against his skin melded into one as Dan allowed his palm to slide against his skin. 

“I…” Dan started to speak, but faltered and fell silent. Fernando turned his head ever so slightly into his hand, savoring the warmth of it, the inherent innocence of its presence. Even when Dan had taken him with more care and preparation than he’d ever known, there had always been that simmering, seething tension in his body that Fernando associated with being seconds away from some sort of furious onslaught. Now, though, there was no tension, no tautness that suggested he was about to be slapped across the face or thrown down and forced to submit. 

He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until a whisper of breath ghosted across his face and he opened them again. Dan was much closer now, eyes still clear as day, but with just a hint of uncertainty.

“Is this alright?” he murmured. His nose brushed against Fernando’s, and Fernando shivered, the sensation new and strange and so very, very good. 

“Yes…” His eyes were falling shut again. He tried to keep them open, but then Dan’s lips nudged gently against the corner of his mouth, and he gave up. 

“And this?” Dan whispered. Fernando could feel his lips forming the words against his cheek, the heat of his breath, the thread of his fingers in his hair. And yet even as obvious as he knew his consent had to be, something told him that as sure as the sky was blue, if he said no, Dan would stop in an instant. 

But he didn’t want Dan to stop.

He breathed out a definitive ‘yes.’ 

And then Dan was kissing him, no obligation, no restraint, and Fernando never wanted it to end.

-

Simply walking down a hallway of his own free will was something Fernando had never experienced. The eighth floor of The Citadel was mostly offices, interspersed with a couple larger rooms that looked like they were for meetings. People glanced up as he walked past their doors, but none of their gazes lingered, and one or two of them even offered polite nods and smiles before returning to their work. 

Dan had seemed at once reluctant and encouraging when Fernando told him he wanted to take a walk, but he hadn't been insistent on either front, and for that Fernando was grateful. His perceptions, he realized, were skewed, but even so he sensed that letting go of the defensive, protective tendencies he'd built up because of their interactions wasn't the easiest changeover for Dan to make. 

It wasn't easy for him, either. Just as he passed by an office with the door closed and the blinds drawn, the door opened and a man in a suit came charging out, clearly in a hurry. He barreled right into Fernando, and Fernando's entire body tightened instinctively, years of experience telling him to prepare for the inevitable assault.

"Oof, sorry man." The man grasped his shoulders briefly, as if to steady him. "My bad." 

He offered an apologetic smile, then continued on his way. It wasn't until his last rapid footsteps faded away that Fernando remembered how to breathe properly, and it took him several more moments to get his muscles to relax. As he made his way back to the elevator, he couldn't decide if he was shaken, disappointed by how deeply ingrained his own distrust was, or simply relieved that this man had unwittingly given him unequivocal proof that the knock-out had worked, that it wasn't just Dan who felt the change. He wondered how long this would last, how long before this deep-rooted fear became lingering, and then eventually dissipated altogether. Would it ever? As sure as he’d been back in that chamber in Clinical that he would give anything to be free, he realized now that telling himself that, and actually experiencing it were two very different things. 

Would he constantly be looking over his shoulder at the past, always half-expecting it to catch up with him? Could he live like this? 

Was it worth it?

The elevator brought him up one floor to the ninth floor quarters, and he stepped out, pressed his hand to the console by the first door on his right. When the door opened and he walked through, the first thing he saw was Dan, stretched out on the couch, fast asleep. With one arm curled behind his head and the other draped comfortably across his stomach, he looked more like a college student than a military intelligence man, and Fernando stopped and stood still for a long moment, just looking.

 _Yes,_ he told himself, remembering the way Dan's fingers felt against his face, in his hair, _Yes, it's worth it. It's all worth it._

-

Dan eased into wakefulness with the strangest sense of tingling numbness in his arm. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hang on to the last fragments of sleep, but then the tingling in his arm grew to almost painful proportions and he resigned himself to waking up entirely.   
The source of the tingling in his arm was immediately apparent--he'd fallen asleep with his arm behind his head, and the circulation had been cut off. Simple enough explanation with an even simpler solution. He sat up and dropped his arm into his lap, wincing a little as the tingling turned to red-hot needles prickling up and down his skin. The room around him was dark, and it took him a few seconds to get his bearings, but he remembered lying down on the couch while Fernando went to take a walk, and he figured he must have dozed off. A quick glance at his watch told him it was almost six in the morning, a bit earlier than his usual wake-up time of six thirty, but not by much, and it was easily the longest stretch of sleep he'd had since that first trip to The Doctor's compound. 

Rubbing his face with his hands, the circulation now more or less returning to his arm, he got to his feet and shuffled back towards the bedrooms. The door to the one on the left was open, and Dan eased quietly into the doorway. He knew what he was going to see, it didn't exactly take a rocket scientist to guess, but his stomach still gave a curious little flip-flop as his eyes settled on the sleeping form in the bed.

He supposed it was the protective, vaguely paternal side of him that expected Fernando to sleep curled up, like a child. Instead, though, Fernando was sprawled out on his stomach almost diagonally across the bed, one foot just barely peeking out where the sheets had pulled up unequally, a pillow scrunched up in his arms to support his head. There was something endearingly unrepentant about it all, and Dan was glad that Fernando was able to fall asleep with him in the vicinity, even more glad that he was able to do so with such apparent ease and comfort. 

Standing there, though, watching the other man sleep and thinking about how ‘beautiful’ wasn’t an adjective he often used in daily conversation but was currently the only one he could think of, Dan wondered what, exactly, made him any different than any of the other people who’d taken advantage of Fernando over the years. People who had certainly looked at his face and body and thought “Beautiful,” just as Dan was thinking now. 

It wasn’t as if he could claim innocence when it came to sex either. Lack of resistance didn’t imply consent. He knew that. Fernando’s fear of consequences he wouldn’t even speak of should Dan refuse him didn’t, at least in Dan’s mind, imply consent either. 

Had Fernando ever explicitly said ‘yes’? 

Dan dug his fingernails into his own bicep, hoping, perhaps, for clarity in the discomfort. He knew the military definition of rape, word for word, letter for letter. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized a strong argument could be made for him having fulfilled that definition. 

That Fernando seemed to be developing such a strong sense of trust in him made him, in a way, feel worse. 

A tiny beep from his watch told him it was just now six o'clock on the dot. He glanced over his shoulder, eying the small, but more than adequate kitchen on the other side of the living room. Most grocery stores would be open now, and the coffee shops had been open since five...

Fernando sighed in his sleep and shifted a little under the covers. 

Biting his lower lip, Dan pushed his own thoughts away, a mental process strikingly similar to the one he’d once had to go through every time he touched Fernando. Then he reached into his pocket to make sure he had his wallet and headed quietly for the front door. 

-

“Already?”

The smug smirk on Steven’s face told Xabi the answer to his largely rhetorical question, but he picked up the data pad the other man had slid onto his desk anyways. 

“’Break-in at Doctor’s Compound may not be only thing worth investigating,’” he read. 

“Nice headline,” he commented after a moment.

“’…documents related to unethical experimentation regarding Gene L, a gene with wide-ranging theoretical background, but supposedly no practical application.’” Xabi raised an eyebrow. “Did you tell Cole about Gene L?”

“Not a word,” Steven responded, “He came up with that all on his own. Dumb like a fox, remember?”

“Sure like to know how he gets this information,” Xabi admitted, setting the data pad down, “Now we just need to get it in The Times.”

“First edition comes out at 7,” Steven said, “Fair bet it’ll be there. Maybe not above the fold just yet, but guarantee in a few days it will be, and it’ll stay there. Cole is good at making stories stick to the front page, even in rival media.”

-

 

Fernando didn't know exactly what the smell was, all he knew was that it had to be good and it had better be edible. He still wasn't even entirely awake yet, but his first deep inhalation of the day had filled his senses with the most amazing array of smells so strong he could almost taste them, and now his stomach was growling impatiently, urging him to get out of bed and follow his nose. 

He heard the clink of silverware and a hot crackling noise before he saw anything or anyone. Suddenly a little chilled, he tucked his arms against his chest and padded out into the front room. He supposed he really shouldn't have expected anything else, but he still felt a momentary jolt of pleasant surprise when he saw Dan stick his head out of the kitchen. 

"Figured this might get you out of bed," he said, his tone light. Fernando joined him in the kitchen, peering almost warily at the pan on the stove. The red-brown strips crackled and popped in a sheen of bubbling liquid and the smell tickled a memory deep in the back of his mind. 

"Bacon?" he asked after a few moments of trying to tease the memory out. 

"Yeah. Had it before?" Dan asked in reply. 

"...I think so." Fernando frowned a little. "I don't really remember." Dan's glance lingered on him for a few extra seconds. He used a fork to spear a piece and transfer it to a plate next to the stove before pressing a paper towel over the top of it. The towel turned opaque with grease, and Fernando noticed Dan grimace a little. Then he tossed the towel in the trash, tested the bacon with his fingers, and picked it up. 

"Here." He held the piece out. Fernando took it, and bit almost tentatively into one end. The flavor was instant and intense, and brought with it a rush of recollection that he hadn't felt in what seemed like forever. He remembered sitting with The Doctor in a large, empty cafeteria-like area, eating breakfast, swinging his feet because they didn’t quite reach the floor. Asking what they were going to do today. 

Being told he had more lessons in the laboratory. Having blood drawn. Looking through a microscope and hearing about red cells and white cells.

The Doctor's hand on his back.

A thumb brushing over the corner of his mouth brought Fernando back from the disjointed maze of images and sensations.

"Bacon grease," Dan explained, dropping his hand back to his side. His eyes lingered again, and Fernando sensed that his impromptu trip down memory lane hadn't gone completely unnoticed, but Dan didn't press the issue. Instead he transferred the last pieces of bacon from the frying pan to two plates already heaped high with fluffy, yellow lumps that Fernando recognized as scrambled eggs, and motioned towards the small table against the far wall.

"Come on. Let's eat."

-

“Seen Dan lately?”

“Ran into him on the way in,” Steven replied, “Said he was heading out to buy some food. Looked more rested than he has in awhile.” 

“You clue him in that he might see this on the news?” Xabi asked, gesturing towards the data pad. 

“Yeah,” Steven answered, “Took it like a pro.”

“He’s worried this might come back to Fernando at some point.” 

Steven shrugged.

“Maybe, but I doubt it. The Doctor’s worked hard to present himself as an honorable guy. He’s not going to openly admit to bribing his benefactors, even if everyone knows that kind of stuff happens at some level. Cole or someone with a guilty conscience might out him, but I still think The Doctor has more to gain by not acknowledging Fernando's existence than admitting any sort of connection with him.”

“But Dan still doesn’t like it.” Xabi didn’t really sound all that confused, but Steven figured he was just trying to make sure they were on the same page. He straightened his shoulders a little, aware that he was talking to First Lieutenant Alonso now, in his capacity as an intelligence officer and an officer of the Army, not Xabi as a friend.

“Sir. With all due respect to Justice, it's not our job to sit around on our asses and debate whether Fernando fits the legal interpretation of property or person. Any Judge who saw what Dan saw would call it rape. Now multiply that by eight years."

Steven took a breath and paused to gather his thoughts. Xabi steepled his fingers against his lips, a sure sign that he was deep in thought.

"Intelligence gathering is dangerous," Steven conceded, "But not that dangerous. High Command set us up with the best arms, armorer and armory this side of the Atlantic for a reason, and it sure as hell wasn't self-defense."

-

The touch of the cool shaving cream against Fernando’s cheek brought another wave of memory, just as intense as the first. Dan had left him alone in the bathroom to go through his morning routine, but as the razor clattered noisily to the counter, the other man’s face appeared in the half-open doorway next to Fernando’s reflection in the mirror. 

“Are you okay?” 

Fernando swallowed empty, lips trembling slightly with remembered sensations. Tile floor under his knees. Coarse cord digging into his wrists. Fingers in his hair. 

“Hey.” Dan was next to him now, turning him away from the mirror. Fernando darted his eyes momentarily up to his, then down to the dropped razor, then over to his own reflection. The half-smear of shaving cream across his cheek looked suddenly ridiculous, and he reached up to swipe it away, but Dan carefully grasped his wrist, halting his action. 

“I don’t…I don’t know how,” Fernando stammered. It wasn’t exactly a lie, he thought, though it was hardly the truth either. Dan’s brow knitted briefly, like maybe he realized that fact. Then he reached for the shaving cream, sprayed a small dollop onto the fingers of his right hand, and brought his left hand up under Fernando’s chin. His touch was gentle, and the initial intensity of the memories had already faded, but Fernando still felt a vague sense of unease as Dan reached for the razor, dipped in the water and the sink and brought it close to his face. 

“…He used to make me kneel down.” The words trickled out of him as Dan made the first, careful stroke across his cheek. The sensation of a weight being lifted off his chest, of a tight band being released around his lungs and stomach was unexpected, but nevertheless welcome, and the way Dan paused momentarily and met his eyes, but didn’t say anything made it easier to continue. 

“I tried to escape once…using a razor blade as a weapon,” he explained haltingly, allowing Dan to tip his chin up for easier access to his jawline, “After that, he’d tie me up. Make me kneel on the bathroom floor and shave for me.” 

Dan inhaled sharply as he dipped the razor in the sink again, then raised it to Fernando’s other cheek. 

“He’d threaten to blind me,” Fernando continued, closing his eyes momentarily as the razor passed uncomfortably close to the sensitive skin around his eye. The words were coming easier now, easing the harshness, the brutality of his memories. “I thought he might do it, too. I didn’t exactly need my sight.”

Dan let out what sounded like a slightly shaky breath.

“He never cut me though,” Fernando continued, opening his eyes again when Dan moved to his cheek, “At least not on the face.” A muscle clenched noticeably in Dan’s jaw, and Fernando’s chest tightened in response because it was still so new, this idea of being so…important. 

For a few minutes, nothing more was said, the silence between them comfortable. Dan retrieved a washcloth from one of the cabinets and soaked it in the now lukewarm water in the sink. After wringing out the excess water, he pressed the cloth to Fernando’s skin, carefully wiping away the last bits of shaving cream. When he was done, he stroked his thumb briefly over Fernando’s cheek. Fernando swallowed again, the sensitivity of his newly shaven skin to Dan’s touch at once calling up even less pleasant memories and at the same time setting his entire system tingling with cautious, quiet delight. 

“It’ll get easier,” Dan said gently, “With time.”

Somehow, Fernando understood he wasn’t talking about shaving.


	10. Chapter 10

“Alright.” They were back in the fourth floor meeting room again, The Doctor’s face yet again on the data pads in their hands, only this time it was attached to a front-page news article in the Coalition’s most widely-circulated media source. There was an intensity to Xabi’s expression that Dan wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. Or maybe he was just alert enough now to actually recognize it. The sofa on the ninth floor wasn’t exactly the most comfortable bed in the world, but knowing he wasn’t going to lose control and not jerking awake at every tiny noise was enough to ensure that he was at least getting more rest than before.

“We smoked him out,” Xabi was saying, “The Times is running with this, which means it’s probably only a matter of time before Justice gets involved. When they do, The Doctor is, obviously, obligated to appear in court.”

He paused, then continued.

“That’s not the best part though.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. A new set of information slid onto their data pads, and they looked down at it. 

“No. Fucking. Way,” Dan said after a moment. He looked back up, and there was just the barest hint of a smile on Xabi’s lips. 

“The Doctor contacted the director last night, asked us to look into a possible kidnapping of one of his highly placed research partners, in connection with the break-in. He stressed that this was highly classified information and that he didn’t want it getting out to the media because…” Xabi trailed off and gestured to the data pad.

“’…this partner is privy to extremely sensitive research information and my work could be greatly impeded if someone gained access to it,’” Dan read off his screen. 

“Jesus,” he spat, “Fernando as his quote-unquote research partner. He’s a genius at talking in euphemisms, isn’t he?”

“And at assuming his money and power will keep us from asking questions,” Steven added, “Did the director press him for details?”

“A few,” Xabi replied, “And The Doctor got pretty defensive, apparently.”

“Figures,” Steve observed.

“So what do we do now?” Dan asked. In some ways, he knew, this case had just gotten a whole lot easier, but in others, it had gotten much more complicated. 

“We lead him on,” Xabi replied, “String him along for awhile, see what else he gives us in the way of information, and what else comes out in the media.”

“What if Justice gets involved before we get enough out of him to arrest him under the Military Code?” Steven asked. 

“We develop contingency plans,” Xabi answered matter of factly. Dan straightened a little in his seat. If they were talking about euphemisms, “contingency plans” had to be right up there with the grandest of them. In this case, it was one he was glad to hear, though professionalism kept his expression neutral. 

“Sir.” He was surprised his mind wasn’t just running away with him at what had just been said, but yet again he supposed maybe that was what being well-rested did for you. “What are the odds that The Doctor has other people looking for Fernando besides us?”

“Better than even,” Xabi admitted, “Especially if he’s got contacts in the Eastern Confederation.” Dan nodded. He had expected that answer, but it still made his stomach sink a little.

“I think it might be a good idea to start training Fernando in some basic firearms,” he said, “Self-defense too.” He stopped short of volunteering himself, even though he was pretty sure everyone else here knew that whatever was between him and Fernando was more than just a sense of camaraderie forged out of difficult circumstances. 

“You do it,” Xabi said without batting an eye, “Try to get him more comfortable being around other people as well. I know it’s hard, but strictly at a professional level, he might be a good person to have in the field.” He didn’t need to add that at a personal level, he understood it was a complicated process and he didn’t expect Dan to work any sort of miracle, only to try. 

“Alright.” Xabi set his data pad down “If Justice sticks their nose in, I’ll let you all know. Might want to lay off the coffee too. These next few days might be a little tense. Dismissed.”

-

Fernando wasn’t really sure how to ask. He couldn’t even really remember the last time he’d asked someone to stop. Thought it, maybe, but he’d given up saying it out loud a long time ago. And even though this request was a simple one, one that he thought might even be fulfilled, he didn’t know how to phrase it, how it was supposed to sound.

He didn’t even know how to get Dan’s attention, in order to ask. 

It was late, and Fernando could tell they were both getting tired. Dan was just getting up from the table where they’d been drinking steaming cups of tea, stifling a yawn and heading for the sofa, where he’d spent every night for the last week. The action, unprovoked and of his own free will, felt strange, but Fernando reached out for Dan’s arm as he moved past, and the other man stopped, looked down at him with clear eyes, the softness around the edges not from arousal or want, but simple fatigue and maybe something else that Fernando couldn’t quite grasp just yet. 

“What’s up?” Dan asked quietly. Fernando swallowed, feeling the sinews of the other man’s arms moving minutely under his fingers. 

“Will you…will you stay?” he asked, training his eyes on the hem of Dan’s shirt. 

“I always stay,” Dan replied with the slightest smile, his tone neither condescending nor dismissive. Fernando bit at his lower lip, his fingers loosening on Dan’s arm. 

“I mean.” He searched for the right words. “I mean, will you stay with me?”

Dan was quiet for a moment, just looking at him. Then he crouched down until Fernando was the one looking down. 

“If that’s what you want,” he said. 

Fernando didn’t quite know how to answer that.

“I want…” 

He trailed off. He didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t know the words for it. Before Dan, the only things he’d associated with beds and pillows and sheets had been burning pain and thrusting hips and obscenity-laced grunts. Dan had shown him the other side—gentleness and care and pleasure.

But he didn’t want that. Not right now. Right now he just wanted the same feeling at night, as he fell asleep and later when he woke up, that he had during the day when Dan was with him.

“Hey.” Fingers curled gently at the back of his neck, familiar, achingly so for the memories they called up.

“I think I get it,” Dan said quietly. He stood back up again, this time taking Fernando’s hands and pulling him gently to his feet as well. 

“Show me,” he said, and it wasn’t a demand, only a request that Fernando understood he could refuse without any fear of consequence. It struck him that maybe Dan was just as uncertain as he was, found words as just as hard to come by as he did. The thought emboldened him somewhat, enough to step back and lead Dan towards the bedroom. 

And when they were safely ensconced under the covers, Dan’s chest solid and warm against his back, one hand holding his lightly against his stomach, Fernando thought that maybe the reason it had been so difficult to ask for this was because this feeling, this…this warmth, this safety, this sense of well-being, was something simply beyond words. 

-

"Left hand here..."

Dan's fingers curled lightly around Fernando's, molding them gently against the grip of the Beretta in his hands. 

"Right hand here..."

More curled fingers, this time guiding his right hand over his left, and Fernando's index finger almost instinctively slid into the trigger guard.

"Square your shoulders..."

Dan's moved his hands to Fernando's shoulders, making sure he was facing directly into the shooting range. He squeezed briefly, then stepped back and away. Fernando was instantly aware of the absence, the relative cold at his back, but the irrational desire to turn around, to check and make sure Dan was still there, wasn't quite as strong as it had been in the past. 

"Alright. Whenever you're ready. Breathe in, then out, and shoot."

Fernando inhaled. Exhaled. Let the settling of his shoulders and chest center him. When he squeezed the trigger, his finger was the only part of him that seemed to move. 

The Beretta jumped with a satisfying loud bang and a bright orange-yellow flash. At the end of the range, a 9 millimeter hole appeared in the mid-chest area of the head-and-shoulders silhouette, and the metallic tinkle of an empty shell casing hitting the floor echoed in the aftermath. Fernando's hands and arms tingled a little with the recoil, but he was quietly satisfied that they no longer hurt the way they had the first few times he'd been down here, shooting blanks.

He lowered the pistol, looked down momentarily, and breathed in and out once more. Then he raised his eyes, brought the gun back up, and fired again. This time the hole in the paper target appeared where the left eye would be. 

Instant kill. 

-

The call came in on Line 1, which told Xabi it was straight from the director, and a top priority one at that. Even before he picked it up, he thought he knew who it was going to be.

"This is Lieutenant Alonso."

"Lieutenant, this is The Doctor calling."

"Yes, Doctor. It's good to hear from you. The director assigned me to your case. I have to say it's something of an honor, sir." 

Xabi kind of wanted to choke on his own words, but flattery was one of many ways to slide into someone's confidence without them even realizing it, and he was no stranger to using it, even with the most distasteful of people. 

"Well thank you, Lieutenant. If you can help me get my research partner back, the honor will be all mine." He sounded appropriately weary, and if Xabi wasn't already aware of who The Doctor's so-called "research partner" was and what he’d done to him, he might have been convinced that it was genuine. 

"Sir, I think it's necessary for me to impart to you that our team does its best to handle all cases as top priorities, but we are a four person team, not a forty person team, and we can't guarantee instantaneous results."

This was the hardest part...

"I understand. Does your team have needs, Lieutenant?"

"With all due respect, Doctor, we are the best in the world. I'm not sure you could recommend anyone we don't already have."

...presenting himself as both a perfectly reasonable and rational case leader who was trying to be honest...

"Ah, Lieutenant, you misunderstand me. Does your team, your soldiers, do they have...needs?"

"Sir?"

...and as a man not above accepting a bribe. 

"For your leisure time, Lieutenant. Your down time. To relax. Arrangements can be made." 

Xabi cleared his throat, as if to sound suitably interested by the clear suggestiveness in The Doctor's tone.

"Continue."

The Doctor paused for a moment.

"My research partner, should he be found, could certainly...impart some expertise to you that you might find...useful in making your downtime worthwhile.”

“That would be…most appreciated, Doctor.” 

“I will be in touch."

The line clicked off. 

-

"Ready?"

"Yeah."

"Alright." 

Dan moved forward, the sparring mat he'd unrolled from the corner of the gym cool under his bare feet. A few feet in front of him, Fernando stood with his back turned, hands ostensibly relaxed at his sides. Dan paused, allowing the silence to settle over them. Then, without warning, he grabbed at Fernando's shoulder, hard enough to pull him off balance. 

Next thing he knew, his breath whoofed out of him as he landed hard on his back, the thin sparring mat doing little to cushion his impact. The pain was minimal, but he coughed a little and stayed there for a few moments, sprawled out and staring up at the ceiling, so he could catch his breath. The tight grip on his wrist loosened, and Fernando's worried face appeared above him. 

"Are you okay?" he asked. Dan raised his eyebrows a little, aware that he could probably pop right back up now, but liking the new perspective. Fernando's face loomed close to his, slightly flushed and sweaty from this workout of theirs that was now approaching three hours. 

In the beginning it had been awkward, difficult even. Much more so than practicing on the firing range. Dan was afraid of either hurting Fernando, or sparking painful memories in him with too much hard physical contact, and Fernando in turn was tentative, not fully used to, or perhaps not even aware of, the full strength of his body. Firearms training was largely individual, devoid of the personal. Self-defense training was the exact opposite.

As time passed, though, their sessions increased in length, and intensity, to the point where Dan had become quite familiar with this view of the gym ceiling. 

Not that he was complaining. His own uncertainties, he was coming to realize, were best assuaged by giving his all and offering sincere congratulations when Fernando still bested him, rather than holding back in some sort of fucked-up attempt at self-righteous protectiveness.

"I'm just going easy on you," he told Fernando, propping himself up on one elbow. Fernando's brow furrowed for the briefest of seconds, as it often did when Dan tried for humor that he didn't fully understand, and Dan sighed inwardly, not really blaming him, just feeling slightly sad that jokes and teasing were something still not quite within their realm yet. He started to raise himself up, to get to his feet--

His breath went whooshing out of his lungs again, only this time it was because of the body sprawling across his torso. An elbow dug gently into his breastbone, and Fernando smiled down at him, perched on top of him with something like mischief in his eyes. 

"Really?" he asked, "Going easy on me?" Dan pushed a little at his shoulder, but he didn't budge. He pushed a little harder, and Fernando pushed back. He reached out and his hand found Fernando's upper arm, the muscles there lean and strong. 

"We haven't really practiced wrestling yet," he observed. Fernando sobered a little, but Dan sensed no hesitation, no fear. He moved his hand from Fernando's arm to his face, wiped a trickle of sweat from his right temple--

And then Fernando was pushing him over, trying to get his arm pinned behind his back.

"You bastard!" Dan exclaimed, twisting around in an attempt to get free. For a moment he felt uncertain at his choice of words, at whether Fernando would understand the fine line between teasing insults and real ones. Then he heard it, the faint but unmistakable bubble of laughter welling up inside the body against his, and his own relief and amusement swelled, all but bursting out of him in peals of gasping, sputtering mirth. He rolled over, making a grab for Fernando's arm, but Fernando wriggled free and managed to get one of Dan's arms pinned above his head. 

"Want to take it back?" Fernando asked, breathless and grinning. Dan used his free arm to try and snatch at Fernando's side, even though he wasn't sure the other man was ticklish, but Fernando evaded the attempt and Dan's fingers snagged in his loose-fitting t-shirt instead. 

"Never," Dan replied with a wink. Fernando leaned over him, his grin softening. 

"What if...I do this?" he asked. His nose brushed against Dan's, and Dan smiled at the memory the sensation called up. 

"Well, maybe..." he acquiesced, feeling Fernando's breath against his skin. His eyes were starting to feel heavy. "Fernando..."

"What about this?" Fernando's lips touched the corner of his mouth, and all Dan could do was tug at his t-shirt still curled in his fingers because anything more coherent was out of the question. Happiness and relief and laughter-induced euphoria had conspired to render him speechless. 

"Take it back?" Fernando murmured against his lips. Dan shook his head defiantly, teasingly.

Fernando kissed him anyway. 

-

The message arrived two days later. It was coded Green, so Xabi knew his were the only other eyes to see it besides the sender. The text was further encoded, and it took a few seconds for his computer to untangle it. When it finally did, Xabi felt his stomach turn. 

_Lieutenant Alonso,_

_I'm sure the military affords you little time for pleasure. Acquisition of my research partner does not necessitate his immediate return. You may wish to engage some of his expertise for your own use._

_The Doctor_

Part of him already knew what he was going to see when he opened up the attached file. 

But that didn't stop the wave of disgust. The pictures left little to the imagination, only a bare crook of a knee or a strategically placed hand, meant to tantalize, entice, and the images seared themselves into Xabi's memory. A blonde head thrown back, throat exposed, mouth open in a silent, frozen cry. A body, arched, wrists bound behind its back, a hand buried tellingly between its thighs. 

A face, freckled, familiar, fingers digging into the cheeks and a thumb against the lips. Teardrops glistening on eyelids squeezed desperately shut. 

Anger, rage surged through Xabi's veins, and it wasn't just because his own sensibilities were offended, because The Doctor for some reason took him to be a man susceptible to such a disgusting and obscene bribe. Earlier that day, he had been wondering, contemplating whether it might be better to simply let Justice deal with The Doctor, and spare everyone at least the physical toll of a seeing out a mission that had, unquestionably, become personal, not only for Dan, but for the rest of them as well. 

He wasn't wondering anymore. 

\- 

Fernando was pretty sure he’d been on a transport before, although it had been years ago, when the technology was still relatively new and not quite as sleek and streamlined as it was now. The hum of the magnetized tracks and the whoosh of air as the multi-car train hovered to a halt next to the platform exhilarated him, simple sounds of a world he still couldn’t quite believe he was actually a part of. 

Dan tugged lightly on his hand, leading him into one of the middle cars. As he did so, he tapped a finger against the red stripe painted across the side. 

“Red Line transports only stop at main platforms,” he explained, easing them into a pocket of space near the door. Fernando nodded. He liked the way Dan explained things to him—unadorned, matter of fact, and without even a twinge of impatience, even though he knew it had to be irritating to have to be a constant teacher of even the smallest, most basic facts of every day life. 

“What other—“ Fernando started to ask what the other color transports were, when a body brushed up against him from behind. The contact was momentary, inconsequential, but it sent a tremor through his system, an instinctual fight-or-flight response that he still couldn’t quite control, even though at this point he could walk around The Citadel without flinching away from every person he encountered. 

Another body pressed up briefly against him, and it was like his muscles seized up. The train car suddenly felt small, the walls collapsing in on him, no way out. Fear clawed at his throat, snatching away his breath. 

And then—

“Hey.” An arm wrapped around his waist, holding him against a solid, familiar frame. A thumb stroked reassuringly over the back of his hand. A shoulder tucked under his chin. 

“Orange Line transports stop at main platforms and secondary ones,” Dan murmured in his ear, just barely audible over the hum of the train, “They run a lot farther and a lot later than Red Line transports. They’re a little less reliable though.”

Fernando closed his eyes, focusing in on the familiar, even tone of Dan’s voice, hanging on to it, a lifeline in a sea of sudden anxiety. 

“Yellow Line transports, they stop at all the platforms, but for some reason their drivers are the worst. I once had three Yellow Liners go by me at a tertiary platform. They made me miss a physical at The Citadel. Lieutenant Alonso was pretty forgiving though.”

Someone brushed up against Fernando again, and he tensed, but Dan squeezed his hand, and the tension eased. 

“Green Line transports are some of the best. You can get just about anywhere, even as far as the border with the Southern Region, and you can flag them down anywhere too. They aren’t required to stop at platforms, but they will.”

A shoulder bumped momentarily against Fernando’s. He kept his focus on Dan’s voice, and the flare of tension faded still faster than before. 

“Blue Line transports are good too. They don’t go as far as Green Liners, but you can flag them down and they’ll get you where you need to go 99% of the time.”

The doors opened at the next stop, and multiple bodies brushed past Fernando on their way out. Dan leaned back a little, searched his face for the fear that had been there before, smiled a little when he didn’t find it. 

“And that’s all you need to know about transports.”

-

"Director."

"Lieutenant Alonso. What can I do for you?"

"Sir, I need a Clearance 11 on The Doctor."

"Easy, Lieutenant, explain please."

"I received these photos in my Inbox half an hour ago."

"...christ. Gives sicko a new meaning, doesn't he?"

"Sir."

"Lieutenant, Justice exists for a reason."

"So do we, sir."

"Revenge?"

"Sir. Revenge would imply he had done me personal harm. My intention is to ensure that he does no more harm to anyone. Ever."

"...I need clearance from High Command. Give me 48 hours."

"Yes, sir."


	11. Chapter 11

Dan had gotten used to waking up with another body in the same bed as him, Fernando’s face pressed into the pillow next to his, occasionally even an arm resting across his chest or a knee tucked against his thigh. But easing awake to the slide of fingertips over his neck was a new—and strangely pleasant—sensation. He kept his eyes closed for a few moments, until the fingers walked lower, finding the slightly raised patch of skin halfway down his back and just to the left of his spine. 

“Does it still hurt?” Fernando’s voice reached his ears, still scratchy with sleep, and Dan opened his eyes to find the other man watching him, his free arm tucked under his pillow. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted. 

“What happened?” Fernando asked, pressing his palm against the scar. Dan closed his eyes again for a few moments. When was the last time he’d talked about this, beyond the cursory, “How’s the back?” “Fine, thanks” conversation?

“The chopper I was in went down over Iran,” he replied evenly, “I was the only survivor.”

Fernando’s expression didn’t change, didn’t take on the thinly veiled pity that Dan was so used to seeing whenever he divulged this particular bit of information, and he didn’t know if it was because pity simply wasn’t something Fernando knew how to express, or because he genuinely didn’t feel it for Dan. But either way, he found it relieving.

“You were hurt,” Fernando stated quietly. 

Dan licked his lips, surprisingly at ease both with the topic of conversation and Fernando’s touch against his scar. 

“Yeah,” he replied, focusing his eyes briefly on the sheets, “Shattered three of my vertebrae. Took ten separate laser surgeries over a year to put them all back together, and three years for me to learn how to walk again.”

“Was it hard?” Fernando asked softly. 

Dan was quiet for a moment, remembering the seemingly endless days of struggling to simply put one foot in front of the other, and the excruciating nights when pain bathed his cheeks in tears. 

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he replied, “Except…”

Fernando moved his hand back up, tracing the curve of Dan’s spine. 

“Except?” he prompted, withdrawing altogether. Dan eased onto his side and looked at the other man for a long time.

“Except for leaving you behind every time I walked out of The Doctor’s Compound.” 

-

“Well look at that. Justice finally decided to throw their hat into the ring.” Steven watched as Xabi tossed a data pad haphazardly onto his desk. It clattered to a halt in front of him, and he picked it up.

“Nice how they waited until public opinion started to turn before they did,” he observed, glancing over the information on the screen. Xabi snorted, and Steven bit back a smile, not because he found the subject even remotely funny, but because he knew he was perhaps the only person in the world to whom Xabi would openly show such disdain. It wasn’t that the other man inherently distrusted or disliked the Coalition justice system, it was more the fact that in this particular case, he simply didn’t believe in their ability to live up to their name. 

“So they’re calling The Doctor into High Court, two weeks from tomorrow,” Xabi said after a moment. His features were calm once again, and Steven wondered, as he had for years, how he did that, how he could mask his emotions as easily as flipping a switch. He supposed it was part of the reason Xabi was head of this case and not him. 

“Which means we have exactly two weeks to get a kill plan in place.” 

Steven didn’t even flinch. Sure, they were supposed to refer to “kill plans” as “Clearance 11,” even within the confines of The Citadel. 

But he’d seen the photographs too. His mind was made up. 

“Then I guess we better get started, huh?”

-

“He used to take me up to his labs and teach me basic stuff. Mostly science. Some reading and math. He did blood tests a lot too. Said it was to keep me healthy. I didn’t know any better.”

Fernando’s body was relaxed and pliant against Dan’s, their knees now bumping lightly under the covers. Dan nevertheless stroked a reassuring hand over his side, noting how the other man, while still lean, almost slim, felt stronger, more solid under his touch. 

“He was always touching me. Not in a bad way, just…putting his hands on my shoulders or my back, standing really close.” 

It was so easy for Dan to hear what Fernando was saying and see the warning signs in it, to pinpoint, even without a behavioral science or psychological background, the ways The Doctor had been grooming him, preparing him. Part of him felt like he had no right, no right to be holding Fernando like this while he talked about these things. But the other part knew what pulling back would feel like to Fernando, a rejection at the worst moment possible. And so he stayed as he was, alert, though not tense, for any sign of discomfort or unease. 

“He took me places, you know, the park, or the zoo. But he never sent me to school. I didn’t think it was weird. It wasn’t like I had friends to compare my life to.”

Dan also realized how easy it was to forget just how skewed Fernando’s upbringing, if it could even be called that, had been. How narrow of a world he had known for his entire life. And how much of a responsibility he, Dan, carried to expand that world. Shape it. Give it color, and form, and meaning. 

“He waited until I was seventeen to…to “break me in,” as he said. He fed me some line about it not being rape because I was of age. I did know better then. Not that it did me much good.”

In a way, Dan had to wonder if it was easier for Fernando to talk about these things than it was for him to hear them. Surely, at some level, it was a relief for him to put his past into words, knowing that they would be heard and listened to. Dan, on the other hand, was hearing these things for the first time, already knowing what the end result was.

“A couple times he took me to…conferences or meetings. I guess he was using me to grease wheels, make his name with people.” 

Fernando shifted against him, fingers curling slightly around his bicep. Dan read it instantly as discomfort, but Fernando turned into him, not away, and Dan sensed that, of all the things he’d said so far, this was the only one that was really difficult. 

“For a long time…”

Fernando clutched harder at his arm, suddenly every bit the broken man Dan remembered from his very first trip to The Doctor’s Compound. He reacted instinctively, wrapping his arms around Fernando’s shoulders and rolling onto his back, taking the blonde with him, and Fernando pressed his face against the crook of Dan’s neck, as if to block everything else out except his presence.

“For a long time, I thought maybe it was just the way I was.” His breath whispered shallowly against Dan’s skin, ragged and uneven. “I thought maybe it was my fault. Somehow. Or that I’d done something to deserve it.”

Dan shook his head. He wanted to refute Fernando’s words, leave him with no doubt as to exactly whose fault everything had been, and how that man was going to pay the price, one way or another, but there was a lump in his throat, thick and unyielding, and even if he’d had the right words, he wouldn’t have been able to speak them. All he could do was tighten his arms around Fernando’s shoulders and press his lips to his temple and hope that those actions conveyed what he was too inarticulate to express verbally. 

For a long time, they hung suspended in the tense stillness and heavy silence that dredging up the past always seemed to incur. But gradually, Dan felt Fernando relax into him, fingers loosening on his arm, his breathing evening out. 

“Fernando?” he murmured when the tight fist of emotion finally released his vocal chords.

“Mm…” Fernando sounded tired, exhausted even by the effort and maybe the relief of putting everything into words. “I like the way you say my name.”

Relieved, touched, and suddenly, inexplicably, exhausted as well, Dan smiled and pressed his lips against Fernando’s ear, closed his eyes and just murmured the other man’s name over and over again until they both drifted back to sleep. 

-

“Hey, Fernando. Working on that CZ again?”

Fernando hit the pause button on the console next to him and safed the CZ78 pistol in his hands before turning his head to see Pepe emerging from the armory, a veritable arsenal of pistols in his arms. 

“Put a whole clip inside the kill zone on the last target,” Fernando replied, comfortably at ease with the armorer. The first week after he had been “cured,” as he had come to think of it, Dan had brought him down here to the firing range to learn the basics of how to handle a firearm. There were no secrets; Dan had explained that there was the distinct possibility The Doctor would have people out looking for him and that sometimes, the best defense was a good offense. By the second week, Fernando had made a habit of coming down here on his own. 

“Your grip is just a touch off,” Pepe observed, coming closer, “May I?” As always, he waited until Fernando nodded his permission to reach out and adjust his grip by half an inch. Then he stepped back, and touched the resume button on the console. Fernando’s reaction wasn’t quite instinctual, but he got his bearings and balance barely a second after the target slid into view, and he emptied half of the clip into the paper inside eight seconds. It was a huge step up from the one-shot-at-a-time approach he’d started out with, and when the second half of the clip was done and the target shifted forward for analysis, all ten shots were clustered not only in the kill zone, but in the very center of it.

“Watch out,” Pepe exclaimed with a wink and a grin, “We got us a shooter.” 

Pepe had intimidated Fernando at first—tall, broad-shouldered, straight-backed and with a voice that, even in conversation, didn’t brook any arguments. That he was also unerringly patient and seemingly inherently able to match his own energy and personality to whomever he was working with were attributes Fernando would only discover later. 

“Hey, check this out.” Pepe beckoned Fernando over, and Fernando safed the CZ and set it down before joining the armorer at the staging area behind the firing range booths. From the array of semi-automatics spread out across the gray concrete counter, Pepe plucked a sleek, silvery pistol and handed it to Fernando. 

“What’s this?” Fernando asked, closing his palm around the handle and noting how smoothly it seemed to fit into his grip. 

“The newest from El Sur, the only firearms maker left in the southern region,” Pepe replied, “Tower Series. Los Torres. Model 9. Fresh off prototype and ready for use.” Fernando double-checked the safety catch and the chamber, then hefted the pistol carefully in his hand. It felt agreeably heavy, but not so weighty as to be tiring or burdensome. 

“I like it,” he said, sighting down the barrel. 

“Thought you might,” Pepe responded with a smile, “Chamber a couple of rounds and let’s see what this baby can do.”

-

"Hi, Dan. Have a seat."

"I know that tone of voice," Dan observed, taking a seat across from Xabi's desk, “It never bodes well.” Xabi looked at him for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. Then he picked up a folder from one corner of his desk and handed it across. 

"What is this?" Dan asked, unsettled by Xabi's silence. 

"It's from The Doctor," Xabi replied, quietly, but with an edge to his tone. Dan took the cue, steeling himself as best he could.

But when he pulled back the edge of the folder, the lurid image there was like an assault on his senses that all the training in the world couldn't defend against. He closed his eyes, but the picture was already burnt into his mind--the fingers clutching at Fernando's face, the thumb about to force his mouth open, the tears about to fall from the corners of his eyes. Dan realized that never, in all the time he'd known Fernando, had he ever seen the other man cry, and the thought that, whatever someone had been doing to him at the time the photo was taken had been enough to force him to tears made him nauseous. 

There were other photos in the folder, he could feel them in his hand, but he dropped the folder on Xabi's desk and shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

"I can't," he stated sharply, trying to keep his voice steady, "I can't. Why the fuck did you even show me that?" Xabi's expression was gentle, his voice even gentler.

"I didn't think it was right to hide this from you," he replied.

"So you thought it was right to shove it in my face?" Dan knew he was bordering on insubordination, but he didn't really care. The picture reminded him of everything he'd seen, and heard, and done, and even the recollection of Fernando curling contentedly--trustingly--against him in the middle of the night wasn't enough to overcome the poisonous, insidious insecurity inside him that continued to tell him he was no different than any of the others who had taken Fernando over the years. 

"The Doctor sent those to me as a bribe. An incentive to find Fernando," Xabi said, "What would you have thought if you had stumbled across the case files ten years from now and seen these under my correspondence records?" His tone was calm and honest, but Dan simply heard it as condescending. 

"Right," Dan spat out, shoving himself to his feet, "Way to cover your own ass, sir. Who gives a fuck about the guy who had to rape someone to get intelligence info. Fuck with my head, it's all good, as long as your conscience is clear!"

" _Sit down, Agger_." The command was issued with such harshness that Dan felt like he'd been slapped. The lieutenant never called him by his last name and had never, ever spoken so sharply to him before. 

He sat. 

Xabi was on his feet now, arms braced against the edge of his desk, and he dropped his head for a moment, looking indelibly weary.

"My conscience is not clear," he said after a moment, raising his head, "You think I didn't understand, at least in theoretical terms, what I was putting you through every time I sent you down there?"

“You have no idea, sir,” Dan replied, only the level tone of his voice keeping it from being an out and out retort. 

“…No,” Xabi admitted, “I don’t know what it was like, Dan. But I saw what it was doing to you, how much it was affecting you.”

"Then why the hell did you keep sending me in?" Dan asked, even though it was a stupid question. He had gone, willingly, had agreed to return not just once, but multiple times. A military court might, in its narrow view of where responsibility fell, see Xabi as the culpable one, but he knew better. 

Xabi was quiet for a moment, a deep furrow creasing his brow. 

"You're not a jarhead, Dan," he said eventually, his expression softening, "You never were. You've got too much of a heart for that. I knew, after that first mission, that if anyone could handle this case, it was you, and that if you couldn't, then none of the rest of us had a ghost of a chance."

It was beyond high praise, especially in an institution such as The Citadel. Dan chewed nervously at his lower lip, regretting his earlier outburst and wondering if Xabi was about to follow his complimentary words up with a court martial order. 

"Sir--"

Xabi shook away the attempted apology, and Dan looked down at the desk, eyes catching on the folder with the pictures in it. The thought of what lay inside the cover still made his stomach churn, but the distinction was clearer now, between the frustration he'd been venting at his commanding officer and the real root cause of it all.

"I was watching you two down in the gym a couple days ago," Xabi spoke up again, "You were teaching Fernando some of the stuff from the Knighthawk School."

Dan shrugged, not so much defensive as bemused.

"Yes, sir?" 

Xabi almost not-quite smiled. 

"My saying it won't make you believe it," he said, "But the way he was looking at you, you're anything but just another someone to him, Dan. Just...remember that, okay?"

Dan's cheeks felt suddenly warm. 

"Yes sir." 

-

“Fernando. Good to see you again.”

Fernando shook Steven’s hand, extended to him in informal greeting across the table in the fourth floor conference room, and as Xabi and Steve did the same, Fernando reflected that it felt almost natural, that he didn’t have to think the whole thing through any more or, perhaps more significantly, surmount a certain amount of fear to do so. 

His extended contact with anyone besides Dan had been minimal, even within the confines of The Citadel, but in the same way his time spent practicing in the firing range had raised his comfort level with Pepe, occasional sparring sessions with Steven and Xabi had built on the confidence he had already begun to place in them both for their role in his escape, and for the trust Dan so clearly put in them. He’d even started to have a few meetings with Steve, an offer by the psychologist that, after some long, late-night conversations with Dan, he’d decided to take the man up on. And while he found that the most personal memories, the deepest-seated emotions were still things he preferred to share with Dan, being able to step back a little with Steve, to put words to some of the things he’d experienced without fearing how it might impact his listener was an outlet he realized he needed. 

It wasn’t that he thought Steve was detached or unfeeling, only that he was a professional who was trained to listen and analyze without outward judgment. It hurt, Fernando realized, to tell Dan things and see his brow furrow, his eyes darken, his lips quirk downward instead of up. Dan said he could handle it, and Fernando didn’t doubt him, and nor would he insult his integrity by keeping parts of his past hidden out of some supposedly selfless desire to not hurt him. 

Sometimes, though, he understood that he needed to look somewhere else, beyond or around or simply away from the trauma, in order to be able to, at some point, deal directly with it, and Steve’s calm, unadorned counseling helped him do exactly that. 

“Okay, everyone ready?” Xabi waited for Fernando in particular to nod before continuing. “Good. Let’s get started.”

-

The plan was a bold one, just the right side of reckless. For that reason alone, Dan liked it. It was an all-out blitz, an empty backfield as the Americans liked to say. No holds barred. Take no prisoners. Leave no doubt. 

His protective side, while growing ever smaller, partly out of natural progression, mostly out of his own self-examination and re-training, had balked a little when Fernando declared his intent to be at the very front of the mission. 

_No_ , he wanted to say, _What if it’s too much? What if he destroys you all over again?_

But another side of him, the side that growled in vicarious pleasure when Fernando emptied round after deadly round into paper bad guys at the end of the firing range, when he sank taut, tape-wrapped fists into unrelenting punching bags, when he threw Xabi or Steven to the sparring mat with grim determination, that side recognized this was a fight that Fernando deserved to join, to take part in. 

To finish.


	12. Chapter 12

“So what do you think?”

“Mmm…” Fernando sighed contentedly as Dan’s fingers dug into his bare shoulder, kneading a particularly stubborn knot free. He was vaguely aware of the other man’s knees resting on either side of his hips, but the sensation qualified as simply that: awareness. Nothing more. 

“That good, huh?” 

“Yeah—ow.”

“Sorry.” Fernando shifted a little, and Dan retreated until he’d relaxed again, the soreness dissipating from the newly released knot. “Seriously, what are you thinking?”

Fernando blinked lazily, sighing again as Dan’s fingers found a new knot at the base of his shoulder blade. He liked it when Dan asked him what he was thinking, even if he didn’t always have an answer. It made Fernando feel important, like what he had to say mattered.

“No one would blame you for being nervous,” Dan observed. Fernando smiled.

“What, don’t tell me the big tough Marine is doubting how well he taught his pupil to defend himself?” 

“Cheeky,” Dan retorted, pinching his side lightly. Fernando squirmed happily away and turned over, and the other man looked down at him with a mixture of affection and concern. Fernando rested his hands lightly on Dan’s knees and eyed them for a moment, thinking about how many times he had seen them bound or handcuffed, a sign of his own helplessness, and how now, those same hands could defend, disable and kill, if necessary.

"With any luck, we'll be in and out of there before we need to do any defending, right?" he said, tapping his fingers lightly against Dan's legs. Dan pursed his lips.

"With any luck," he affirmed with a nod. 

"Xabi and Steven seem like they have a lot of experience with this stuff," Fernando noted, "And Pepe isn't exactly a guy you would bet against, would you?" He was trying for a smile, a relaxation of the tension he could feel in Dan's body, but the other man just bit at his lower lip and shrugged.

"It's not them that I'm worried about," he replied. Fernando was quiet for a moment, just watching him, watching the emotions play out across his face. At times like this he wondered if it was hard for a military man like him, so conditioned to following orders and doing what was asked of him, to grapple with his own sentiments and make peace with them in his own way, on his own time. 

At times like this, he remembered that he wasn't the only one who had learning, and unlearning, to do.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said after a few moments, “But…there’s not much The Doctor or anyone there can do to me that hasn’t already been done.” 

Dan frowned momentarily, but the expression didn't linger. He reached down and plucked a stray thread from the shirt Fernando was wearing--it was a cheap one, bought from one of the big malls just west of the city center, and it was already starting to fray. 

“They could kill you,” he pointed out quietly. There was fragility in his tone that Fernando recognized, but couldn’t quite comprehend. 

“I’m not afraid,” he said after a moment, “Being shot, being killed…it doesn’t scare me.”

Dan looked at him for a long time, one hand resting lightly on his arm.

“I know,” he replied eventually, “It scares me, though.”

Fernando’s stomach folded over itself in a way he couldn’t describe, that same curious mixture of pain and pleasure that Dan’s attention to his wants, his needs, his very existence, seemed to evoke in him time and again. 

“It’ll be okay,” he said quietly, stroking his thumb over Dan’s knee, “We’ll be okay.” Strange, how assured he felt, how confident he was in his own words. But then that was what Dan did to him. Gave him strength. Gave him confidence. Made him believe that there was a place in this world for him, and maybe he wasn’t entitled to much, but he was damn well entitled to believing in himself.

Dan smiled a little, no doubt amused by the role reversal, and Fernando smiled back. 

“Still sore?” Dan asked after a moment. Fernando held out his hand in response, and Dan chuckled lightly as he took it obediently, using his thumbs to massage first the back of his hand, then his palm before working his way up to the wrist. His fingers followed the ridge between the bones of Fernando’s forearm, digging out knots and soothing swollen tendons, and even as Fernando squinted repeatedly and hissed occasionally at the momentary bursts of discomfort, his awareness of the solid warmth bracketing his hips and the calm, in-rhythm wisps of breath against his bare skin was starting to grow.

Dan turned his attention to Fernando’s shoulder, leaning down to work his fingers into the firm muscles there. The collar of his shirt was loose, the elastic long since exhausted, and Fernando’s eyes flickered down to the half-moon opening. Pale skin, stretched taut over hard-earned muscles met his gaze. Telltale shadows, the two arms of a V, started just above the hem of jeans and disappeared tantalizingly below, promising to converge--

Heat pooled with embarrassing suddenness in Fernando’s cheeks and in the pit of his stomach. Dan was moving above him again, turning to his other shoulder, and Fernando thought maybe the hitch in his breathing wasn’t quite as obvious as it felt. 

“Do I need to stop?”

Or maybe it was. 

He was still trying to formulate a response when Dan squeezed his shoulder and leaned over to press a kiss to his temple, arms already braced against the mattress to push himself up and away. 

Before he could second-guess himself, Fernando reached up and curled his fingers at the back of Dan’s neck, turned his face into the crook of his shoulder. 

Eased his hips up once, twice against Dan’s. 

Felt a sigh of understanding trickle over his bare shoulder. 

Whispered,

“Please don’t stop.”

-

Even as Dan lowered his lips to Fernando's shoulder in a gesture of consent and affirmation, he was more than well aware of the fact that this was surely one of the first, if not the first, time Fernando had ever asked for someone--anyone--not to stop. The intensity of that awareness seemed to sing through his veins, tinging his actions with a sort of delicateness he knew would do more to frustrate rather than satisfy. He trailed his mouth tentatively down Fernando's arm, stopping at the hollow of his elbow, then his wrist, tonguing briefly at prominent tendons and veins, but when Fernando touched his fingers to his lips, more curious than seductive, Dan drew back, unwilling to simply suck them into his mouth the way instinct wanted him to. 

"Dan." Fernando propped himself up on one elbow and tugged Dan down until their foreheads were touching. Dan swallowed thickly, trying to smooth the ragged harshness of the breaths spilling from his parted lips into the space between them. 

"Dan,” Fernando repeated, and Dan registered that his breathing sounded uneven, erratic as well.

“I want this," he said simply. 

For a few moments Dan was silent. How could he explain that he wanted this too, but by the very virtue of wanting it, he felt as if he was no better than anyone else who had taken Fernando over the years?

Fernando closed the last few inches between them, pressing his open mouth against Dan's, just hard enough to reinforce his next statement. 

"I want you," he clarified. 

Another kiss. Dan parted his lips momentarily, allowing himself to breathe the other man in. 

"I want you," Fernando repeated. "Not Dan the soldier--" A third kiss, lingering. "--not Dan the government agent--" And a fourth, a tongue darting almost playfully inside his mouth. 

"Just Dan." He nudged a final kiss to the corner of Dan's mouth, then drew back a little, a bare hint of a smile on his lips. "Just you."

Dan hesitated for a moment longer. When was the last time he had admonished himself not to get ahold of himself, to gain control, but to let go, to give in? When was the last time he’d been given permission to do so? 

When was the last time he’d given _himself_ permission to do so?

Fernando’s lips were ghosting over his again, invitingly curious. His fingers were carding lightly through his hair, tips grazing the sensitive skin of his scalp. And Dan realized that maybe, maybe this was permission enough. 

-

It was a gift, Dan thought many minutes later as he laved lingering kisses over the taut expanse of Fernando’s chest. Being able to kiss, and touch, and draw soft noises of pleasure from the other man, without feeling as though he was constantly on the brink of losing control, of tearing either himself or Fernando to pieces. Sucking gently at Fernando’s lower lip without feeling the dark urge to tear through the soft skin with his teeth. Easing a thigh between his jean-clad legs without the sickening desire to force him open. Mapping an open-mouthed trail from stomach to sternum to Adam’s apple and being able to focus on every flutter of Fernando’s eyelids, every curl of his fingers in the sheets instead of reining in the ugly, roaring monster of lust in his own system. 

This was the way Fernando deserved to be loved, he thought. And it was a gift to be able to give this. 

Carefully, so as not to startle, he lowered his hands to the edge of Fernando’s jeans, rested them there while he pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

“Is this okay?” he asked softly. Fernando looked up at him, eyes warm with unashamed arousal but also bright with something like mischief. He reached for the hem of Dan’s shirt, tugged lightly.

“Don’t I get a turn?” he asked, pulling it up slightly and slipping a hand underneath. Dan shivered a little as his fingers found a nipple, stroking lightly until it hardened. 

“Cheeky,” he chided, a little breathlessly, but he acquiesced readily as Fernando maneuvered them around, turning him onto his back and wriggling around a little before getting settled comfortably above him. Dan was at once inwardly endeared by his carefree coyness, and rather outwardly, obviously aroused by the way he was moving against him. He felt the telltale throb of the beginnings of hardness between his legs, and some of his previous uncertainty started to creep back out into the open. 

Fernando eased his shirt up over his head, lowered his mouth to the hollow of his neck and twisted his hips in a slow, deliberate motion. The press of his own half-hardness against Dan’s was unmistakable, and as he moved his lips to a peaked nipple, sucked it into his mouth with another slow thrust of his hips, uncertainty fled back into its hiding place, sure, Dan knew, to creep out again, some other time, some other place.

But not here. Not tonight. 

Fernando was tracing the curves of his torso now, smoothing his fingers over every rib and muscle, every scar, as if to commit them to memory, then following them with his mouth. Dan brought his hands up to rest lightly around his shoulders, curled his fingers gently in the soft hairs at the base of Fernando’s neck, and got a pleased grumble against his stomach in reply. He let his eyes fall to half mast as Fernando snuck up to steal another kiss from his parted lips, but even in his reduced vision, he could see that the other man looked less sure now, more hesitant in how to proceed. 

“Do I pass muster?” he asked, sliding a hand around to swipe his thumb across Fernando’s cheek. Fernando smiled, ducked his head a little as a faint blush colored his cheeks. 

“Yeah,” he replied, looking up from under his eyelashes, “I suppose you’ll do.” Dan chuckled throatily and gently grasped his shoulders, turning them over again. 

His thigh pressed insistently between Fernando's legs as he did so, and Fernando made a tiny noise at the back of his throat, arched up for more contact. Dan obliged for a moment, nudging his knee up further so Fernando could grind against him, and there was something so heartbreakingly _real_ about the other man's raw, unrefined movements, his head thrown back on the pillow, fingers scrabbling at Dan's shoulder, small moans falling from his open mouth, that Dan contemplated continuing, bringing him to the edge and then over, just like this. 

But he wanted to do more. Give more. Make it even better. For everything Fernando had been through, he deserved better. 

Dan brought his hands again to rest at the waistband of Fernando's jeans. Before he could even ask, Fernando was already fumbling with his own zipper, and it was Dan who grasped his wrists, silently counseling patience. He finished what Fernando had started, dragging the zipper all the way down, then slipped his hand inside. He stroked his fingers lightly over the hardness he found there, squeezed once, then withdrew. Fernando let out something like a whine, and Dan pressed a reassuring kiss to an exposed hipbone as he worked his jeans partway down, exposing him with aching slowness. He palmed his erection again, teased his fingers from base to tip, ghosting his fingers over the slit. Fernando shuddered beneath him, groaned out something that sounded like "tease." Dan smiled, not unkindly, and slid his jeans all the way off, then turned his attentions to the skin of Fernando's inner thighs. 

The scars there weren't new or unknown to him. He'd seen them before. But they still jolted him, made his insides boil at the thought of someone holding Fernando down and rutting into him while they scratched and bit and tore at his unprotected skin until he bled. He passed his lips over the white, raised marks, wanting to at once acknowledge them, baptize them as badges of the strength Fernando had shown, and to cleanse them, soothe whatever pain was left over in them, take it into his own being so Fernando wouldn't have to bear it any more. 

When his mouth found the juncture of hip and thigh, Fernando, who had been quiet and still during Dan's previous ministrations, arched again, angling his leg wider to give Dan better access, and even as Dan stroked calming hands along the undersides of his thighs, the curves of his hips, he knew he was sending contradictory messages with the drag of his lips mere millimeters from where Fernando really wanted it. 

"Dan..." His name fell from Fernando's lips like a sigh, and he stopped, though he wasn't sure it was a request to stop at all. He crawled back up the other man's body, still careful, even now, to bear most of his weight on his own arms and avoid giving Fernando the sensation of being pinned down. 

"Wanna see you," Fernando murmured, capturing his lips as he slid his hands down to Dan's jeans. Dan smiled a little into the kiss and Fernando smiled back, and he didn't say anything, but Dan understood, as his jeans slid off his hips, that this was the first time Fernando had ever undressed anyone of his own volition, of his own free will. 

There was a long moment after Dan kicked free of the last of his clothing where Fernando simply explored him with his eyes, running them over Dan's body in a way that felt at once intimate and innocent. Then he settled his hands on Dan's hips and arched up into him, and Dan groaned so hard he thought his throat was going to tear open. Red-hot pleasure poured through his system, spiking his veins with every slide of heat against heat, hardness on hardness. The thought of just what was making that slide so slick made his entire body throb and he sought out Fernando's lips, sank them into a trembling, sloppy kiss. 

-

Fernando had never known that this kind of sensation could exist. His entire body felt like it was on fire, every nerve ending burning like a lit fuse, the heat all at once far too much and not nearly enough. His muscles spasmed and clenched, seemingly of their own accord, arching his back and curling his toes, wringing moans from what felt like the very pit of his stomach. Dan was moving, thrusting against him, and even with his legs spread obscenely wide to allow him access, he wanted to spread himself wider, open himself further. 

Emptiness, the lack of invasion, had always been something he considered a blessing, a respite, a relief. 

Now, the emptiness gaped inside him, aching with the need to be filled. 

"Dan--" Another moan clawed its way out of his throat, momentarily cutting him off. He grasped at the other man's shoulder, whispered for him to wait. Instantly, Dan halted, easing back, lips parted and panting, hair sweat-dampened and clinging to his forehead, and yet still somehow every bit the disciplined, controlled man Fernando remembered from their unlikely beginning, a man who heard or simply sensed "stop" not as a request, but as a command to be obeyed. 

"I want..." Fernando started, then stopped, not entirely sure how to proceed. He reached up, pressed his fingers against Dan's cheek, remembering the way he'd done so all those months ago in The Doctor's compound. It felt like another lifetime, and yet the sensation was familiar, comforting. Dan leaned down and kissed him, dipping his tongue into his mouth. At the same time, Fernando felt him reach between their bodies, slicking his fingers with the wetness there. 

"This?" Dan murmured, low in his throat, resting a finger against his entrance.

"Yesssss--" Fernando's response turned into a hiss as Dan eased his finger inside. He realized, with startling clarity, that this was the longest time he had ever gone without someone inside him. The discomfort was measurable, but it didn't last, and Dan's lips against the inside of his knee eased it to almost nothing. He pressed deeper, eyes on Fernando's the whole time, and when Fernando gave the barest of winces at a new twinge, he stopped. It was strange, Fernando thought, that at a time like this he should be so touched by the realization that Dan took the effort to read him so well, but he was. 

Dan eased his finger deeper still, curling it minutely, and Fernando knew what was coming, but it didn't diminish the shudder that absolutely wracked his body or the stuttering cry that burst out of his throat. The finger twisted inside him, curled again. Another shudder, a stifled groan. More twisting. Another curl. Shudder. Whimper. A second finger slipped inside, almost without him realizing it, and he was torn, desperately so, between wanting to come, _needing_ to, and wanting, needing the emptiness to be filled all way, not simply assuaged. 

Suddenly, shockingly, the fingers were gone. The emptiness inside him ached with renewed fervor. Dan filled the space above him, settling between his legs. Hard, slick flesh touched against the sensitive skin of his entrance. 

"And this?" Dan asked softly, and Fernando knew he wouldn't move without an answer. 

"Yes." 

Dan reached for his hand, twined their fingers together, and leaned down to kiss him. A moment later he was pushing inside and Fernando was gasping gratefully against his mouth, welcoming the barely-there burn, savoring the almost overwhelming sensation of being filled, and being filled not for any other reason than because he wanted to be. 

For a moment, when he was fully sheathed inside, Dan stilled, his eyes wandering over Fernando's face, fingers resting lightly on his stomach and thigh, and Fernando didn't protest, knowing that this was a first time for Dan, too, the first time he was doing this without obligation or the necessity of supreme self-control and machine-like restraint.

After a few seconds, he stroked a hand over Fernando's cheek and lowered his forehead to rest against Fernando's as he slid almost all the way out, then back in. Fernando forced himself to keep his eyes open, wanting to watch the way Dan's eyelids fluttered, the way his lips trembled. The next thrust found his prostate, and the one after that too, and the one after that, and then Dan slid a hand between their bodies, palmed Fernando's erection, stroked him in time to his thrusts. Fernando could barely draw enough breath to moan, his body coiling tighter, spiraling higher. 

"Please," he gasped, arching, writhing without shame, all but clawing at Dan’s shoulders, "Please." 

Dan slid all the way out of him, waited a beat, then slid all the way back in, wringing another moan from Fernando’s throat. He stilled for a moment, buried to the hilt inside, one fingertip teasing lightly over his slit. Fernando mouthed desperately at Dan’s chin, unable to come up with a more coherent protest, and Dan met his lips at the same time as he slid in just that extra bit further. 

Fernando clenched, shuddering, trembling at the feather light nudge against his weakness. He was rewarded with another, and another, and another, and he clenched down harder and harder until he was sure he could feel every inch of Dan inside him. He felt like a rubber band, stretched all the way back, waiting to snap. 

"Please. Dan, please. I want—“ Dan shifted inside him and he cut himself off with a gasp, clutching desperately at Dan’s shoulders. 

“Tell me,” Dan murmured, balancing him on the edge with slow, steady thrusts, “Tell me what you want.” And it might have been teasing or innuendo, except for the emphasis on the word _you_. 

“I want—I want to come,” Fernando blurted. He couldn’t remember ever having said those words before of his own free will. They felt strange on his lips. Foreign. 

“I want to come,” he tried again. Dan didn’t respond, but Fernando thought the flush in his cheeks looked deeper than before. He reached up with pleasure-weakened fingers and touched them to Dan’s lips.

“I want you inside me,” he said, feeling Dan’s lips tremble under his fingertips, “I want you inside me….when I come.” 

A strangled, half-groan, half-whimper escaped Dan’s throat, and the realization that it was because of him made Fernando’s stomach fold deliciously over itself. He felt Dan making his fist tight, stroking him once, twice more, and then he was melting, dissolving, falling apart, swept away on crest after crest of swirling, white-hot bliss, and for a long, long second, the only thing he was aware of, could even comprehend, was Dan’s face above him, steady and unwavering, an anchor in the midst of it all. 

When he finally shuddered into the aftermath, it was to Dan burying his face in his shoulder and stifling an open-mouthed moan against his skin as he found his own relief in release. The ringing in his ears, the buzzing in his body was slowly giving way to bone-deep heaviness that promised soreness in the morning, but he summoned the energy to turn his head and seek out Dan’s mouth, ease his descent from the high of climax with a kiss. Dan responded after a moment, moving his lips slowly against Fernando’s, then pulling back, stroking a hand through his sweat-damp hair. 

-

Fernando was half-asleep by the time Dan returned from the bathroom, boxers pulled up haphazardly over his hips and a warm washcloth in hand. The blonde stirred a little as Dan carefully drew the sheets back, watched sleepily as he passed the cloth over his thighs and hips.

“Go to sleep,” Dan murmured, sliding the cloth lightly across Fernando’s stomach. The other man made a humming noise and obediently closed his eyes, and Dan was struck yet again by the absolute trust Fernando placed in him. To be able to voluntarily close his eyes and drift into unconsciousness, naked and exposed in Dan’s presence and know that nothing would happen, it was yet one more affirmation of what Xabi had told him.

He drew the sheet back up over Fernando and returned briefly to the bathroom. When he came back, Fernando curled luxuriously under the sheets, apparently sensing his presence in the doorway. 

“Come to bed,” he mumbled without opening his eyes, and Dan doubted he was even fully awake. He padded across the room and slipped under the covers. Fernando rolled over and burrowed comfortably against him, grumbling contentedly against his bare chest. Dan rested his chin on the top of his head, closed his eyes and wondered to himself where, exactly, the line was between a three-letter word and a four-letter one, and how, exactly, did one know when he had crossed it?

-

Fernando knew what it felt like to have eyes on him, even if he couldn't see them. He could vividly remember times when he'd squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to put some sort of barrier between him and his visitors, but still being able to feel smoldering gazes raking up and down his body. 

Easing awake to familiar yet somehow more pleasant soreness in his muscles, he could feel eyes on him again, but they were different, in the best way possible, and when he cracked one eye open and peered over the edge of the blanket pulled up around his face, he found a pair of hazel ones looking back, still warm with sleep and soft around the edges. 

"Hey." His voice felt scratchy in his throat and he coughed a little to clear it before repeating his greeting. "Hey." He felt Dan shift underneath the covers, stretching his legs out against Fernando's, and Fernando sighed, wonderfully warm and content. 

"Sore?" Dan asked, bringing one hand up to rest lightly on Fernando's side. 

"Mmm...not so bad," Fernando replied lazily, propping his head up on the pillow so he could look at Dan properly. Dan smiled a little and lightly pinched his side.

"Ouch!" It didn't hurt, not in the least, but Fernando clucked his tongue at Dan and kicked his ankle underneath the covers. "What was that for?"

"Making sure you're awake," Dan replied, chuckling, "I have a question." Fernando huffed in mock annoyance and resettled his head on his pillow.

"Okay."

Dan was quiet for a few moments. 

“When this is all over,” he started eventually, “You’re going to need another place to stay. To live I mean. To start your real life.” 

For one, horrible second, Fernando thought maybe this was some sort of parting ways, a speech intended to begin putting distance between them, pushing him out of Dan’s life. The old fear bubbled up, the gut-wrenching, visceral dread that Dan was just using him for his own means, his own pleasure. 

It must have shown on his face, because Dan’s brow furrowed, and he reached up to stroke a reassuring thumb over Fernando's cheek.

“I’m just…" He stopped, took a deep breath. "What I’m trying to say…is…is…youcouldmoveinwithme.”

The words tumbled out of Dan's mouth, tripping over one another in their haste and uncertainty, and between that and the sudden rollercoaster ride Fernando's gut had hopped on, it took Fernando a full three seconds to comprehend what Dan was saying. 

"W-what?"

"You don't--you don't have to," Dan backtracked, eyes sliding away from Fernando's, "I mean, it's just a...just a thought. You know, to-to get your feet under you before--ouch!" He interrupted his rambling to clasp his side, now stinging from what Fernando ajudged to be an appropriately hard pinch. Before Dan could retaliate, Fernando wrapped a placating arm around his waist and tucked himself comfortably into the curve of Dan's body. 

"You're stupid if you think I'd want it any other way," he grumbled against the other man's collarbone. There was a pause, and then Dan released what Fernando recognized as a relieved laugh. He reached up and carded his fingers lightly through Fernando's hair, and Fernando closed his eyes, humming contentedly. 

"You're something else," Dan mumbled, seemingly half to himself, "You really are."

For the first time in his life, Fernando was able to take that as a compliment.


	13. Chapter 13

“Ready?”

“Bet your ass, sir.”

“Alright lads, kick the tires and light the fires. Here we go.”

-

The ID card was an old one that was no longer in circulation, but the overworked and under-appreciated security guard at the front of The Doctor's Compound didn't know that. He saw the title across the top that read "Justice Bureau of Investigations" and a picture that matched the face of the holder, and he knew The Doctor was under investigation. That was enough for him. 

"First door on the left," he recited, handing the card back with barely a glance at the five other suited, official-looking men flanking the cardholder, "Ask for Mark, he'll check you in."

-

Fernando had to work not to let his eyes wander as Xabi led them briskly through the atrium and towards the door the security guard had indicated. It wasn’t the fear of recognition that bothered him—the hormone shot to darken his hair and the reassuring weight of his holstered sidearm saw to that. It was simply the fact that his memories of this place were vague at best, seen through a child's eye in the years before The Doctor had confined him, but they weren't, in and of themselves, awful, and it confused him to think that he could come back here and not feel instantly nauseated. Was it a sign of strength, he wondered, a sign of how far he'd come? Or was it weakness, an inability to recognize and admit just how badly he'd been hurt and abused?

Two feet to his left, Dan quietly cleared his throat. Fernando glanced over at him, and Dan raised an eyebrow in question. Fernando shrugged a little, turned his eyes forward again. 

-

"Bureau of Investigations?" The slight waver in the visitor desk attendant's voice betrayed his otherwise calm facade. "What's your business here?"

Xabi held up a sealed envelope with an official seal. It was a slight gamble because who knew what this particular staff person might have been before he became a desk clerk. But it was one that paid off. Xabi allowed himself a small, inward smile as the man's eyes fixed on the seal. 

"Coalition Law requires we deliver these court summons in person," he said, "Tell us where we can find The Doctor."

-

Dan recognized the maze of hallways and rooms as soon as he and Fernando stepped off the elevator from the main floor. Judging by the way Fernando halted, he wasn't alone. The colorless, feelingless walls and the harsh, fluorescent lighting jolted Dan's memory back to the very first time--the confusion, the nausea, the inescapable torrent of lust. He could only imagine what kinds of things they evoked in Fernando's mind. 

Surprisingly though, it was Fernando who resumed moving first. 

"Come on," he murmured, heading in the opposite direction that the visitor desk attendant had told them, "I remember this place."

-

Downstairs, in the heart of the research wing, Pepe and Steve moved ostensibly aimlessly among the lab-coat-clad workers, keeping out of the way and occasionally feigning interest in one thing or another. Their suits and ties made them at once highly visible and at the same time, largely non-suspect. When one worker stopped to ask if they needed help finding something, Pepe held up an official looking ID card. 

"Just looking around," he said in a friendly tone. 

From the corner near one of the chemical hoods, Steve reached up to scratch his ear. 

-

"Here." 

The door was nondescript and completely unmarked. Dan eyed it uncertainly, turned to Fernando.

"How do you know?" 

Fernando touched his hand to the wall, lowered his eyes and ran his fingers along the paneling. 

"I just do," he replied, raising his eyes and moving his hand to the Tower Series pistol holstered snugly against his hip. 

"Okay." Dan reached for the door console, aware that this was the first time in what felt like years that he had trusted someone--anyone--so innately. 

-

A single beep chirped quietly in the communicator tucked into Xabi's ear. Xabi turned and glanced around the atrium until he caught Steven's eye. A short nod was returned in kind, and Xabi casually raised a finger as if to scratch his ear. A two-toned confirmation signal zipped down the line in response. 

-

"You!"

Hands fisted in the collar of Fernando's jacket, yanking him off balance, but the months of training in the gym had paid off. He lashed out with a closed fist, catching The Doctor in the jaw. He stumbled back, and Fernando shoved him into the room, heard Dan close the door behind them. The Doctor charged him again, got a hand around his neck, but Fernando felt him falter when his touch didn't elicit the expected sensations, and he snatched the opportunity, jamming the muzzle of his gun up into The Doctor's gut. The hand on his throat abruptly released its hold.

"You little slut," The Doctor sneered, even as he backed up, "Like you'd even know how." 

Fernando cocked the trigger and sighted on The Doctor’s forehead as he felt Dan step into the space next to him. The Doctor's eyes widened briefly in recognition, then narrowed back into a leer.

"So," he said, "Like fucking him so much you decided to keep him for yourself?" 

"No one keeps me," Fernando responded coldly, "Not anymore." 

"Oh no?" The Doctor dragged his eyes up and down his body, and Fernando shuddered involuntarily, hating the man with everything in him. "So all those times you spread your legs for me and never said no? All those times you moaned for more?" 

Shame flared in Fernando's cheeks, hot and painful. Heat pricked at the backs of his eyelids. His hand wavered.

"Shut up," he croaked, pushing back against the memories threatening to burst out of the dark corners of his mind. He wanted to look at Dan, but couldn't. The Doctor smirked at him, sensing his advantage.

"I was just 'keeping' you, was I?" he asked, almost mockingly, “You didn’t mean to come for me again and again and again, it was just an accident.” He turned towards Dan, still talking to Fernando. "But this one, it's all for love, is it? When you get on your knees for him? Suck him off? Choke on his cock?" 

"Fuck you," Dan responded, his voice low and hard, "You sick, depraved bastard." 

"Has he ever said 'yes' to you?" The Doctor pressed, now speaking directly to Dan, "Has he said he loves you? Or deep down are you really just one more horny bastard who likes his tight little--"

A dull, silencer-muted bang ripped through the tension in the small room. A splatter of blood appeared on the wall behind The Doctor. 

Fernando watched the body fall, a single, hot tear slipping down his cheek to match the single, fatal gunshot wound he'd put in The Doctor's forehead. 

-

Xabi didn't linger on the brittle expressions on Dan and Fernando's faces when they re-entered the atrium. There would be time for that later. He touched his ear again, then reached up to adjust his tie. 

A split second later, the shrill wail of the fire alarm pierced the relative quiet of the high-ceilinged building. Steven was already heading for the door, and Xabi signaled for Dan and Fernando to follow. He waited an extra few moments to confirm that the security guard in charge of monitoring the main security cameras had left his post, then turned and headed for the door as well. Once outside, Steve and Pepe joined them a few moments later from the research wing, features studiously blank. As students, researchers and other workers filtered out on the main boulevard in front of The Compound, jolted from their daily routines, no one paid any attention to the six suited 'investigators' climbing into a black unmarked transport at the edge of the main lot.


	14. Chapter 14

_"...The Bureau of Investigations released a statement this morning confirming The Doctor, who was already under investigation for ethics violations in his research on genetic engineering, was found dead in his office, apparently having committed suicide. It was also confirmed that a number of blood and tissue samples in The Doctor's laboratory had been tampered with and even destroyed. The Bureau refused to speculate on whether such tampering might have been the result of The Doctor trying to cover his tracks. Analysts, however, say it is a no brainer..."_

Xabi turned off the media report and removed it from his screen. 

"It's amazing how stupid the media can be, isn't it?" Steven said, looking at him from across his desk. Xabi shook his head a little.

"Tell them something that makes sense and they don't ask too many questions," he agreed, "Doesn't speak too well for journalists, does it?" 

"Well, Lucas picked up on it right away, but then he was always a step ahead of the curve," Steven replied, "I told him give it about ten years and then he can make his million with a book about it." Xabi smiled a little.

"How'd you get this story into the pipeline?" he asked, "Cole again?"

"'Course," Steven responded, "Hooked him up with The King over at Investigations, he's covered our asses for years on this type of thing. Let him give Cole all the 'information' he needed to jump to his own conclusions." 

Xabi smiled again.

"Well, they don't call him The King for nothing, do they?" 

"Not hardly."

Short silence.

"So everything from Fernando's existence at the Compound was destroyed," Xabi said after a few moments, "Correct?" Steven nodded.

"Confirmed it through The Bureau this morning. Pepe and Finnan really did a number on those blood samples, and they made sure that a couple magnets got left on the hard drives that came into Evidence from the Compound. Not even the geeks at Crypto could get anything off of them now." 

Xabi took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. Pulling off operations didn't quite set his heart racing as fast as it had when he was a rookie, but pulling off a successful one with all men safe and no loose ends left, it gave him a sense of pride, relief and accomplishment all rolled into one. 

"So," he said, leaning back in his chair and looking across his desk at his longtime friend, "Mission accomplished." 

"More or less,” Steven acknowledged, a slight frown belying his otherwise relaxed demeanor, “Have you talked to Dan or Fernando since yesterday?”

“No,” Xabi admitted, “Worried?”

Steven nodded.

“Yeah,” Xabi sighed, “Me too.”

-

On the 9th floor, the shower had been running for more than half an hour now. Dan had been doing his best not to let his worry get the better of him, but enough, he decided, was enough. 

"Fernando?" He knocked lightly on the bathroom door. No response. He knocked again, harder. Still no response. 

"I'm coming in," he announced, putting his hand on the knob. Still nothing. 

When he pushed open the door, he expected to find the bathroom full of steam--Fernando tended to like his showers hot. The air, though, was clear, and when he reached for the shower curtain and pulled it back, the water droplets that spattered his arm were ice cold. 

Slumped in one corner of the shower, Fernando sat with his head bowed, frigid water pouring over his bare skin. He wasn't even shivering, and for one, horrible second, Dan thought the worst. 

"Fernando?"

The other man moved his head slightly, just enough for Dan to breathe a momentary sigh of relief. He reached over and shut off the water, grabbed a towel from the nearby rack and crouched down to wrap it around Fernando's shoulders. When Fernando still didn't respond, Dan simply sat down on the floor of the shower next to him, oblivious to the water that seeped into his jeans and shirt. 

Fernando finally let out a shaky, gasping breath. 

"I'm sorry."

Dan reached over, used the corner of the towel to carefully push Fernando's hair out of his face and dry the water from his brow. 

"For what?" he asked gently. Fernando let out another shaky breath, darted his eyes up to Dan's, then dropped them again.

"I was...I thought I was doing so well...but all he had to do was remind me how much of a slut I was and—and—“ 

“You are doing well.” Dan reached for Fernando’s hand, reinforcing his words with a physical manifestation of his own conviction. “And you weren’t. Ever.” 

There were no words, he thought, for how much he hated The Doctor for the things he had said to Fernando the day before. The things The Doctor had accused him of, well, those were demons that Dan still wrestled with sometimes, late at night. 

But they were nothing compared to the Hell he had done his best to pull Fernando back into. 

Fernando grasped onto his hand like it was a lifeline, clutched at it as if he was afraid it might disappear. 

“Sometimes…sometimes I didn’t try to stop him,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper, “I let him touch me. I let him make me feel…good.” The last word he spat from his lips, poisonous, full of self-disgust. 

“You’re human,” Dan replied gently, “It’s natural to want it to feel good, to…to avoid pain.” 

“It’s natural with you,” Fernando countered, and Dan was momentarily warmed by the fact that, for all the ferocity with which the past had come roaring back to haunt him, Fernando’s belief in them, in what Dan felt for him, would do for him, wasn’t shaken. 

“It was never natural with him,” Fernando continued, “It was always about control and reminding me I wasn’t good for anything other than a good fuck.”

“And the alternative?” Dan asked quietly. “Fight him? Make him beat you? Have him do it dry?” 

“But what does that say about me, Dan?” Fernando raised his hands to his face, dug the heels of his palms against his eyes as his voice broke. “Letting him have me after everything else he did to me? What does that make me?”

Dan had never before thought it was possible to feel one’s own heart breaking. He reached for Fernando, begging with a hand under his chin for him to look up at him. When he finally did, Dan had to swallow three times before he could find his voice. 

“It makes you a survivor.”

-

“So how’re they doing?”

“I really can’t tell you yet, sir. I put a couple sedatives in their food at dinner, and Dan clearly noticed but didn’t do anything to avoid it.”

“Not sleeping?”

“Fair shout.”

“…It’s been over a week now. Was it a mistake?”

“…They’re both tough, Xabi. Tougher than anyone I’ve ever worked with. Especially Fernando, but Dan too.”

“But they’re not robots.”

“No.”

“Best guess?”

“…Another rocky week or so ahead of them. Then I think they’ll make peace with it, close this chapter of their lives and start the next one.”

“Together?”

“Are you kidding? Have you seen the way they look at each other?”

“You’re the Psych specialist, not me.”

“Says the guy who tipped the SMS track curve up over 180 in his first year.”

“Not that you were keeping track.”

“Not that I was keeping track. Sir.”

“Okay. Well, keep me posted. I hope you’re right.”

“Me too, sir.”

-

“Mmmhh…that bastard.”

Fernando wasn’t used to being awakened by Dan grumbling curses against the back of his neck. To tell the truth, he still wasn’t entirely used to waking up with Dan at all, but the lingering fear that one day he would wake up and it would all be gone, taken away from him wasn’t nearly strong as it once had been. 

“What’s wrong with you?” he mumbled, opening his eyes briefly before they seemed to fall shut again of their own accord. Everything felt soft and warm and so comfortable that he didn’t want to move a single muscle. 

“Steve,” Dan clarified from somewhere behind him, “That bastard, I knew he drugged us.”

“Drugged?” The rational part of Fernando’s brain tried to be alarmed at that, but the rest of him accepted it without much thought. 

“He put, uh…” A foreign-sounding word left Dan’s lips, like nothing Fernando had ever heard before. 

“Sedatives,” he said after a moment, back to Standard, “He put sedatives in our food.”

“Mm…” Fernando sighed as Dan draped an arm over his side, stroked a thumb lazily over his collarbone, “To help us sleep?”

“Yeah…” Dan mumbled in response, his breath warm against the nape of Fernando’s neck, “To be fair, we haven’t been doing too much of that recently.” Fernando’s mind wandered a little, following that train of thought back to the reason why neither of them had been sleeping well. 

_Doctor._

_Keeping you._

_All for love._

_Shut up._

_Die._

The memory was uncomfortable, the images and emotions still raw around the edges, but whether it was the sedatives, or maybe just the effect of a week and a half’s distance, he didn’t find it overly troubling. 

“We really did it, huh?” he asked, pressing his cheek against the pillow and closing his eyes again, “We really ended him.”

“You ended him,” Dan clarified quietly, “You deserved to.”

Fernando didn’t smile, the image of The Doctor’s blood and brains splattering across the wall forever ingrained in his mind’s eye. But his chest seemed to expand and relax, his stomach unclenching, like his body was finally accepting that they—he—had set him free. 

“You’re something else,” Dan murmured against the back of his neck. 

“Mm, so you keep telling me,” Fernando mumbled in reply. He felt Dan smiling against his skin, and silence settled over them, a cocoon of comfort and affection. 

“…we’re going to be okay, huh?” he all but whispered into the quiet. The arm around him tightened, the fingers curling reassuringly against his bare chest. 

“Yeah,” Dan sighed, sounding completely and utterly content, “We’re going to be okay.”

-

Dan’s first observation when he stepped into Xabi’s office almost two weeks later was that his commanding officer looked far more relaxed than he had in a long time. Thirteen days’ rest, he gathered, had done them all a world of good. Under the crisp creases of the lieutenant’s dress black uniform, the slope of his shoulders was softer, less rigid, and the lines and shadows around his face were noticeably less pronounced. 

“The dress uniform really does turn me on, sir, but you know I’m already taken.” 

Xabi laughed out loud at Dan’s irreverent greeting, and Dan quirked a smile of his own, trying to recall the last time he’d been able to banter so freely with the lieutenant. 

“That’s okay Marine, I never thought you were the type to hit the sack on the first date anyways.” He gestured to the seat across from his desk. “I’ve got a debrief with the Joint Chiefs before lunch,” he said by way of explanation, “Pro-forma post-op interrogation. If we’re lucky we might all get a couple weeks paid leave out of it.”

Dan nodded, taking the proffered seat.

“Any more news on The Doctor?” he asked. 

“More evidence of unethical experimentation,” Xabi replied, handing over a couple data pads, “People are starting to come forward now that The Doctor’s rep has been destroyed. They wouldn’t have been taken seriously before; now it’s like a landslide that just keeps gaining momentum.”

“Good,” Dan declared quietly, scanning the information and handing it back.

“…How’s Fernando?” Xabi asked after a few moments. 

“Better,” Dan responded, “Sleeping without sedatives, getting a good amount of exercise in at the gym. Spent a couple hours talking with Steve last night.”

Xabi nodded.

“And how about you, Marine?”

Dan shrugged, neither willing nor, he knew, able to lie to the older man.

“Doing better, sir,” he answered honestly, “Not a hundred percent yet, but I think I will be soon. Spent some time talking with Steve too, this morning.”

“Okay,” Xabi said with a nod. He plucked another data pad off his desk, handed it over. “Take your time.”

“…I thought you said you hadn’t met with the Joint Chiefs yet,” Dan said with a frown, glancing over the information on the screen. 

_Daniel M. Agger:  
You are hereby ordered on extended leave, end date to be determined at the discretion of your CO._

“I haven’t,” Xabi confirmed, “This comes directly from your commanding officer.” 

Dan looked up at him, saw not disapproval or reproach, but rather warmth and complete comprehension in his expression.

“Take as much time as you need, Dan,” Xabi said, “Find a place to live with Fernando. Go on a vacation. Forget how to be a soldier for awhile.”

Dan looked down again at the orders in his hand. The idea appealed to him, strongly so, but he hadn’t even known it until Xabi said it out loud. Coalition military pensions were good, exceptional even, and if he picked up a part-time civilian job, even fifteen hours a week, he could easily afford a multi-room apartment in all but the most expensive districts in the region. 

Time. Space. Life.

_Love._

And yet…

He was a Marine at heart, a soldier who wanted to make a difference. He preferred boots on his feet and a gun in his hand to the relative normalcy of shuffling papers or bussing restaurant tables. He knew he needed a break, like every soldier who was worth his salt did, but he didn’t want or need a complete decommission. 

Xabi smiled, like he knew exactly what was going on in Dan’s mind. 

“If and when you decide you’re ready,” he replied, “There will always be a place at The Citadel for you.”


	15. Chapter 15

The first time Dan saw the inside of the loft-style apartment on the coast of what had once been Cadiz, he was sure the real estate agent had been lying to him about the price. He might not have been an expert on civilian lifestyles and pricing, but he was pretty sure the massive square footage plus the hardwood floors and the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bay cost far more than his pension allowance could even begin to cover. 

It was only on his second trip, bringing Fernando by, when he saw the straight back and the almost unconscious cadence inherent in the agent's steps that things started to fall into place. He watched the woman all but stand at attention as they rode the glass-walled elevator up to the top floor, and even though she was dressed in a modest skirt and suit jacket, Dan could see she wasn't someone to mess with. His heart had told him she must be a Marine, but his gut told him Special Forces. 

"’Retreat, hell’?" he asked quietly as they exited the elevator, an indirect, if unequivocal request for identification. Strange that a force as advanced, technologically and otherwise, as the Special Forces, should use such an archaic expression as their motto, but wars had changed over time, and Special Forces had begun to see almost as much open combat as Marines and infantrymen. And if Dan's memory served him correctly, they took their motto to heart; lived, and died, by it. 

"Retreat, hell sir," she agreed, and Dan knew he had been right. 

She didn't blabber mindlessly as he and Fernando wandered the loft's light-filled open spaces. When Fernando's eyes wandered to the balcony overlooking the main living area, she offered up the information that there were two full bedrooms, both equally spacious and opening onto a joint patio.

"Uhm, I think we only need one," Fernando replied. Dan flushed momentarily, aware that, while Coalition Special Forces were the best in the world, they weren't always known for being the most tolerant. The agent though, simply smiled warmly and took it in stride. 

"In that case," she said without missing a beat, "You could turn the other one into a study or an office."

As Fernando climbed the stairs to take a look, Dan caught the agent's eye, offered a small nod. She smiled again.

"We take care of our own, Mr. Agger," she said quietly, at once a fellow soldier and a fellow civilian.

"Thank you, Ms..."

"Dominguez," she replied, "Sergeant Major, sir." Dan wondered if that was her real name and real rank. He doubted it. She was likely a lieutenant or higher, and probably carried passports with five different names. 

Not that it bothered him. He realized that she was there as much for security and peace of mind as for getting him settled into luxury living accommodations at a bargain price, and even though the Marine in him balked at the thought, he liked knowing that his training and self-defense, while hopefully not needed for many, many months, would be backed up by a Special Forces officer. He wondered if this was simply the military honor code at work, or if Xabi had been pulling some strings behind the scenes for him. 

"Lieutenant Alonso speaks very highly of you," the sergeant major spoke up again. Dan smiled. As if he could have thought that Xabi wouldn't have a hand in this. 

"And you believed him?" he replied, "Army puke that he is?" She laughed. 

"I've seen a lot of liars in my time," she explained, "Lieutenant Alonso isn't one of them."

Fernando stuck his head over the edge of the second floor balcony then.

"I'm not leaving this place until we sign a lease," he announced, addressing them both. Dan gave a little mock salute in response, while the sergeant major/real estate agent replied that she thought that could be arranged easily enough.

-

“How does it look?”

“…uhmm…I don’t know…”

Fernando examined his reflection in the dressing room mirror, not quite sure what to make of the dark wash jeans and the maroon dress shirt he had plucked off the department store rack at Dan’s urging. They felt comfortable, and the dressing room had automatically altered its lighting scheme to what was supposedly the best for his complexion, but he looked in the mirror and didn’t honestly know if what he saw was beautiful or hideous. 

“Come out here and let me see.” Dan’s voice was playfully cajoling through the dressing room door, and Fernando had to smile through the uncomfortable uncertainty that still broadsided him from time to time, the realization that he still lacked some knowledge that was, quite literally, second nature to most people. 

When he stepped out of the dressing room, Dan stared at him for a long moment from his vantage point against the opposite wall. Fernando pursed his lips, assuming the worst from his silence. 

“Not good, huh?” 

Dan huffed a quiet laugh and pushed off the wall, dropping his crossed arms to his sides. 

“It figures you’d have better fashion sense than me,” he said, closing the distance between them in a couple strides, “Mind you, that’s not saying much, since Xabi once told me I have the fashion sense of a blind mouse.”

“Ouch,” Fernando observed. Dan smiled and reached out to straighten the collar of his shirt.

“You know, if you walked into a club like that, every girl in the place would be clamoring for your number,” he observed after a moment, “Half the guys, too.”

“Only my number?” Fernando asked without really meaning to. Dan went quiet for a second, still fooling absentmindedly with the collar of the shirt. 

“You know what normal, rational, decent people do when they see someone as gorgeous as you?” he said eventually, “They sidle up to you at a bar, and they drop some cheesy pick up line, like ‘Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?’ Then, if they’re lucky, you respond and strike up a conversation. If they’re really lucky, you give them your number, because you like them. And if they’re the luckiest person on the planet, they might get to go on a date with you, because you decide they’re worth your time.”

Fernando’s cheeks felt suddenly warm. He quirked a small smile.

“Is that what you would have done?” he asked. Dan looked down with a sheepish grin. 

“Probably not,” he admitted, “I was never very good at making the first move. You would have made me too nervous.”

“Nervous?” Fernando exclaimed with mock indignation, “But I’m so sweet and nice!” 

Dan laughed out loud.

“Sure,” he replied, “Sugar and spice, that’s you.” Fernando rolled his eyes, and Dan laid placating hands on his shoulders, squeezing gently as he sobered a little.

“I just figure…if I’d met you in a bar or something like that…there would have been a lot better options around than me.”

Something, though he wasn’t quite sure exactly what, told Fernando that Dan had rarely, if ever, been this honest with anyone. 

“You know,” he said quietly, “In eight years, how many people were able to control themselves when they touched me?” 

Dan moved his head a little, in what might have been a shake or a nod, Fernando wasn’t sure. There was a slight furrow in his brow, a sure sign the topic of conversation troubled him. Fernando pushed on. 

“One,” he said, “You. You gave me…everything, Dan. And…maybe you think there would have been better options or that…you wouldn’t have been worth my time, but I _know_ you are the only one for me and I _know_ you’re more than worth my entire lifetime.”

-

Dan gasped against Fernando’s shoulder, barely coherent as he arched his hips against the other man’s, sweat and precum making the slide of hardened flesh slick and easy. He tore at the sheets, sure that he was about to shatter both in heart and body, and even as the edge rushed up to meet him, he forced himself to keep his eyes open and on Fernando’s. 

Hot pleasure seared their veins and arched their backs and coaxed soft, trembling moans from their lips. They moved together in the aftermath, riding out the last temblors of climax. Tongues tangled lazily, heedless of the need for modesty, and the warmth in the room, the heavy blanket of contentment told them that this was now, finally, home. 

-

"Hi, what can I get for you?"

"Two pounds of the Atlantic halibut and a half a pound of the dried anchovies."

"Sure."

With expert efficiency, Fernando reached into the cooler behind the counter and hefted out what he estimated to be roughly two pounds of fresh cleaned Atlantic halibut. A quick check on the scale told him his estimation skills were spot on, and five seconds later, the fish was secured in paper and a plastic bag for easy transport. It went into a pre-sized container with the pre-bagged anchovies for check out, and Fernando slid it adeptly down the counter so it stopped right at the elbow of the cashier.

"Next!"

When Fernando had first decided he wanted to get a job, the Calderon Market and Deli on the pier had not originally been his first choice. It was the manager there who had taken a shine to him, a gruff man in his mid-30s whom everyone simply called Captain. His real name, Fernando found out after a few conversations, was Raul, and he had gently but insistently worn Fernando down, waving off his protests that he didn't have any of the skills necessary to work in the market, especially one that, in an age of technology and mechanization, still prided itself on doing everything by hand. Starting with a few hours a week, and gradually working up to a few days, Raul had taught him everything, from how to mop the floors in the quickest and most efficient way, to how to clean a fish without getting even a single scale on him. Fernando had picked things up so quickly that Raul had started calling him "College Boy," and after some initial uncertainty, he'd found out from some of the other workers that a nickname was the highest compliment Raul ever paid to anyone. 

He liked the job. It was smelly, tiring and definitely not glamorous, but it was satisfying to be an expert at his work. He liked being able to rattle off names of the fish they had in stock to customers wanting to know the freshest catches. He liked being able to scan shipping manifests and pick out any errors with one glance. He liked being able to lift shipping cartons from the backs of trucks without much effort, and being able to know, just by lifting them, whether this particular shipper had shortchanged them or not.

Another order slid down the line to the cashier, and Fernando called for the next customer in line as he ducked under the counter for a new pair of gloves. When he came back up, he was halfway through his customary "what can I get for you" when he registered who was standing there in front of him.

"Dan! What are you doing here?" He was smiling before he even realized it. 

"Well, the salmon was looking pretty good, but then I saw the catch behind the counter and realized I had to have him." Fernando flushed, wanting to make fun of Dan for being so blatantly cheesy and romantic, but just a little bit too touched to do so. 

"I uhm...my shift doesn't end for another--"

"Go. Give me your gloves. Get out of here." Out of nowhere, Raul appeared, taking the gloves from Fernando's hands and pushing him away from the counter. When Fernando still hesitated, Raul glared at him. "Before I change my mind, College Boy!"

Fernando smiled at the insult-slash-endearment.

"Thanks, Captain." Raul waved a hand over his shoulder. 

"Yeah, yeah."

-

Two large packages plopped into the shopping cart, ironically, or perhaps fittingly, on top of a bag of carrots. Dan eyed the packages and started to frown. 

"Brownies, Fernando? Really?"

Of course, sometimes Dan forgot how absolutely doe-eyed Fernando could be when he really wanted something. 

"Alright, alright. Brownies it is."

-

The patio door rattled a little as Fernando fumbled briefly with the lock, still not quite familiar with the mechanism even after three months. Dan glanced over his shoulder, then turned around fully when Fernando joined him in socked feet, jeans and an oversized sweatshirt from the tourist pier. One hand held a brown beer bottle while the other was curled inside the sleeve of his own oversized sweater. 

"Hey you." His voice was warm with affection. 

"Hi." Fernando sidled closer to Dan, nudged their shoulders together. "So...are you going to finish that beer?" Dan looked over at him, head cocked slightly, and Fernando understood his puzzlement; the first, and only, time he’d had beer in the past, he’d hated it, hated the bitter, acrid taste and the fuzzy, uncoordinated feeling it gave him. 

That had been almost six months ago though. Fernando figured it was time to try again, not least because he felt guilty that Dan imposed a sort of self-banishment to the balcony now any time he wanted a beer. 

And also because he was beginning to understand that his ability to be scared, to push back from losing control instead of simply resigning himself to it was an incredible, unequivocal measure of just how far he’d come. 

"Here," Dan said after a moment, holding out the bottle. Fernando took it, feeling the warm points on the otherwise cool bottle where Dan's fingers had been. He raised the bottle hesitantly to his lips and allowed the liquid to flow across his tongue, instead of trying to swallow it as quickly as possible. He still disliked the taste, but the bubbles fizzed pleasantly against his cheeks and all the way down his throat. He took another couple sips, then handed the bottle back. 

A few minutes passed, and he could feel his eyelids starting to get heavy, his veins warming, his muscles sighing with induced relaxation. He leaned against Dan, not sure that he liked it much better than the first time, and Dan slipped an arm around his shoulders, pressed a kiss to his forehead. Fernando sighed and closed his eyes, listened to the rhythmic ebb and flow of the incoming tide, savored the softness of Dan's flannel shirt under his cheek. Everything felt warm and calm and languid, even as the salt-tinged breeze blew in off the waves and tugged rather rudely at their hair and clothes.

"This isn't so bad," he murmured eventually, Dan chuckled somewhere above him.

Fernando tucked his nose against the side of Dan's neck, inhaled deeply.

"You smell good," he mumbled, feeling calm and languid and supremely unconcerned with things in general. Dan chuckled again, and Fernando huffed against his skin. 

"Here I am trying to pay you a compliment," he grumbled, "And you just laugh at me." An amused hum, and he wondered if Dan was rolling his eyes. 

A few moments later, fingers curled under his chin, tipping his face upward. Dan's mouth pressed against his, as warm and languid as he felt. He tasted faintly of the chocolate brownies from dessert, and the beer in his hand.

"Better?" Dan asked, drawing back. Fernando considered for a moment. 

"I can't decide," he replied finally, "Kiss me again and then I'll tell you." Dan laughed, and did as he was told.

-

"Hey Dan. Espresso to go?"

"Hi Ryan. Make it two, and a shot of vanilla in one."

"Sure. You Fernando?"

"Yeah."

"Hi. Ryan."

"Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

Fernando felt a little self-conscious as Dan's co-worker at the coffee shop down the block from the apartment ushered them back behind the counter, but no one seemed to give them much of a second glance, and those that did just gave Dan a quick hello and continued with whatever they were doing. The shop was medium sized, part of a small chain that operated all along the coast of the southern region, and both the employees and the clientele were mostly recent graduates of university. By virtue of his age, Dan more or less fit in. Fernando doubted few, if any of them, knew Dan's previous occupation, and the fact that Dan only worked ten hours a week helped maintain the facade that he was a young professional trying to make his way in one of the many vague yet burgeoning industries while holding down a part time job for some extra spending money. 

"Espresso with a shot of vanilla," Ryan said, handing over a steaming cup kept cool on the outside by thin layer of heat-impermeable material. Fernando took it, and Ryan gave him an approving smile. 

"I've been trying to convince Dan for ages now that a shot of vanilla makes an espresso ten times better, but he won't listen." His spoken Standard carried virtually no accent, although his dark skin hinted at roots outside the Coalition. 

"It's a sin to adulterate coffee with anything," Dan interjected. 

"You know what he does to people who come in here asking for a double-this, no-whip, triple-cream caramel monstrosity?" Ryan asked, leaning in conspiratorially towards Fernando. 

"What?" Fernando asked in reply, already grinning. 

"Gives them decaf," Ryan said with a wink.

Dan snorted. 

"Want to know who I learned it from?" he asked as Ryan handed over his unadulterated coffee. 

"Oh, now hang on, let me guess," Fernando replied, raising an eyebrow in Ryan's direction, and Ryan raised his eyes innocently to the ceiling, tapped his chin as if to imitate someone thinking. Dan nudged him in the shoulder, raised his cup of coffee.

"Thanks for the hit. Catch you tomorrow." 

"Nice to meet you," Fernando said as he and Dan headed back around the counter. Ryan gave a little mock salute.

"Keep him out of trouble."

"Go make some coffee, Ryan."

-

“How about this one?”

Dan ran his palm over the smooth finish of a dark, oaken headboard on display near the back of the furniture store he and Fernando were perusing. The carved design was elegant but simple, and despite the fact that it wasn’t the most popular style, judging by the electronic Consumer Rating board next to it, he liked it better than the cheaper, newer styles they’d made due with the first few months; he found them cold and sterile. 

Fernando slipped an arm around his waist from behind and set his chin on his shoulder, eyeing the headboard for a moment. 

“Mm,” he said after a moment, “Not bad.” 

Then his lips were pressing against Dan’s ear, his voice husky as he added,

“But there’s nothing to hold on to, is there?”

As quickly as he’d arrived, he’d left again, and Dan was caught between being shocked—in the best way possible—and needing to find a chair to sit down in. 

“Excuse me sir, can I help you?”

Dan jerked around to find a perky, expectant saleswoman standing at his elbow. He offered what he hoped was a relaxed smile. 

“Yeah, do you—“ He stopped and cleared his throat, realized he was blushing and thought that if ever there was proof that Fernando had recovered from his past, this was surely it. “Do you have headboards with, uh…bars?”

-

The shower was on, the water hot so the bathroom was filled with steam, and the tile against Dan’s back was cool enough to make him shiver. He would have laughed at how cliche it was, were it not for the open mouth trailing slowly down his stomach.

“I thought…I thought we were going to enjoy the new headboard,” he said, just about managing to keep his voice steady. Fernando winked up at him, mouthed at the soft skin just below his navel.

“I’m sure we can make time for that later.” Dan tried to smile at the innuendo, but had to bite his lower lip when Fernando’s lips found the crease of his thigh. His coherent mind marveled briefly at how Fernando was taking the initiative, how he had, seemingly out of nowhere, learned how to wind Dan up and get under his skin. The furniture store had just been the beginning, and by the end of the day, Dan had been inches from jacking himself off in the back of the transport and hoping no one would notice. His pride in how far Fernando had come had been tempered only by his frustration. 

A tongue dragging over his inner thigh brought him back. 

“Wait…wait, Fernando…”

Mischievous brown eyes looked up at him while their owner continued his ministrations. Dan swallowed hard, hyper aware of exactly what he wanted Fernando to do, and at the same time hyper aware of the necessity of what he was about to say.

“You don’t…you don’t have to—“

“Dan.” Fernando pressed his hands to Dan’s hips to hold him steady, a smirk playing on his lips as he let them brush teasingly over the head of Dan’s hardness. “Shut up and enjoy it.”

-

"Are you awake?"

Propped up on his side, Dan watched Fernando bury his face in his pillow.

"No."

Dan quirked a smile and reached for the sheets bunched haphazardly around Fernando' bare waist, started to ease them down. In an instant, Fernando shot a hand down and pulled the covers all the way up to his neck before lifting his head just enough to cast one baleful eye in Dan's direction. 

"You're mean," he muttered. Dan reached over and tucked a section of his hair behind his ear in apology, and Fernando's expression softened. 

"Didn't see enough last night?" he teased sleepily, bunching his pillow up with his arms and resting his cheek on it so he could face Dan fully. Dan half-smirked even as a blush tinged his cheeks, his mind's eye happily serving up images of his fingers working inside Fernando's entrance, his tongue teasing the stretched skin until Fernando couldn't take it anymore and rolled them over and rutted desperately against Dan's thigh until he came.

"I saw plenty," Dan replied, leaning over and planting a kiss on Fernando's bare shoulder before switching gears, "I want to ask you something."

"Ask away."

Fernando looked supremely unconcerned, and Dan wondered briefly if it was because he didn't fully understand the implication of his question. From his brief and disastrous experiences with women in his pre-crash military days, he knew that "I want to ask you something" was one of those phrases that set most people on edge, especially if they were in a relationship.

"It's been...almost two years now," he said after a few moments, "Would you...would it bother you if I went back to The Citadel?"

He had been thinking this through for days now, considering all the possibilities, all the objections Fernando might raise and the ways he might be able to answer them. Between the physical dangers and the stress that working at The Citadel entailed, he knew it wasn't fair to ask Fernando to live with the almost constant threat of him not coming home. It wasn’t that his ego had gotten so large that he thought himself that important, that indispensable to Fernando’s well-being; on the contrary, he knew that so much of Fernando’s growth and transformation had come from the man himself, from his own mental and physical capacity to endure, and if he himself had been through half of what Fernando had been through, he wouldn’t have come out anywhere near as strong. 

There was an awareness, though, that much of Fernando’s happiness resided with him, with the life they had together, and above all, Dan wanted him to be happy, with or without him, in his life or out of it. It seemed a small, almost invisible distinction, but Dan understood that wanting Fernando to be happy with him, and wanting Fernando to be happy were not necessarily the exact same thing. The worry that Fernando would lose him, and the worry that Fernando would be unhappy didn’t necessarily come from the same place. 

"Uhm...earth to Dan?" 

Dan blinked as Fernando waved a hand in his face, not even realizing how far he'd drifted.

"Sorry," he said, "What did you say?"

Fernando playfully tweaked his nose.

"I said, it would only bother me if you go back without me."

-

"Dan. Fernando. It's good to see you back. You're looking good."

Fernando thought the same thing about Xabi as he and Dan took seats across the desk from him. His service whites contrasted well with the renewed tan and color in his cheeks, and the lines of sinew and muscle in his bare forearms, while always prominent, looked even sharper and more streamlined than before. An additional red and white bar on his already impressive array of decorations indicated the Intelligence Star that the operation against The Doctor had earned him. 

"How's life?" Xabi asked after they'd taken their seats. Dan shrugged a little, turned to glance at Fernando. 

"Good," he replied, turning back, "Really good."

"And your better half?" Xabi asked with a wink in Fernando's direction. 

"Keeping him out of trouble," Fernando responded. Xabi chuckled a little.

"I bet that's a chore." Dan took the ribbing like a pro, and even to Fernando’s untrained eyes, he looked more comfortable, more at ease here within the walls of The Citadel than he ever really had outside them. It wasn’t that Dan had ever expressed displeasure or discomfort with him, with the life they’d started to build together. On the contrary. Fernando sensed that the last two years had been some of the freest, and happiest, of Dan’s life.

But there was something almost inherent about the way Dan seemed to fit into the fabric of this place, and vice versa, and it struck Fernando that Dan had willingly given this all up, perhaps partly for himself, but certainly, unequivocally, for him as well.

Sometimes he wondered if that meant that there was something inherent about him and Dan as well.

"So the two of you want back in this crazy place," Xabi said eventually, and it wasn't a question. Fernando shifted a little, suddenly not entirely comfortable under the officer's forthright gaze. Two years of living a normal life, of experiencing the way things were supposed to be had given him more perspective on everything that had happened before, and part of him, rightly or not, had learned to be embarrassed of what had happened to him, had learned that it was something to be hidden, not known. It hadn't really occurred to him that maybe Xabi would see his past as a weakness, as something to be looked down on when considering him. 

"Fernando, you'll have to go through Basic Training," Xabi said after a moment, "It's a requirement for Citadel employment."

"I know." Dan had already told him that. "I'm already on the list at Fort Hagen, all I need to do is update my status."

"Good." Xabi nodded. "Sergeant Carragher runs Basic at Hagen. He's a hardass, but a fair one, and he's not mean." Fernando nodded; Dan had already told him that, too. That was one of the reasons he'd chosen Hagen, a northern-based camp, over some of the ones that were based in the southern region. 

“I’m also going to ask Steve to clear you both, before you start working,” Xabi added, his tone careful, but not hesitant, “I trust both of you, but if nothing else than for institutional integrity and my own personal conscience, I want to make sure I’m not tossing you into the deep end without a life vest. Okay?”

Fernando nodded, and Dan’s quiet “Yes, sir” from the seat next to him sounded grateful. 

"I'll get the files started then," Xabi said, reaching for a data pad at the edge of his desk as Dan and Fernando stood up, "Drop by HR on your way out and you can get your basic info into the system. Dan, I'll see you in here on Monday. Fernando--" He stood up, reached out his right hand, and Fernando took it, felt strength and encouragement and confidence in the handshake, "I'll see you in six weeks. Good luck."

-

It was an easy question, one of the easiest in the world, and maybe that’s why none of them had given it any thought before now. 

“Sir?” The young private manning the intake station at HR was looking up at him expectantly, fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Your full name?”

Fernando glanced fractionally at Dan, even though he knew he didn’t have an answer either. Coalition Law was such that only the most formal of things required full names anymore—if a fingerprint and retina scan didn’t turn anything up on the police records, most employers didn’t care what one’s name was, and while most banks had done away with confidentiality, loopholes in the tax and financial codes allowed them to accept so-called “plausible” aliases. The military was one of the last bastions of traditional practice when it came to names and identification. 

But Fernando realized that names were something so innate, so natural, that he couldn’t have expected this to cross Xabi’s, Dan’s, or anyone else’s mind. 

He lowered his eyes for a moment, racking his brain for something, anything, a memory, a word, a place name that he wanted to attach to the only name he’d ever known. 

His mind fell on the crystal clear memory of sleek, silver metal, cool and solid in the palm of his hand. The trigger breaking smoothly under his finger to end his old life and start the new. 

The word “Tower Series” etched into the handle on one side, the Spanish equivalent on the other. 

“Torres,” he said, breaking the silence that was just beginning to tip toward uncomfortable, “Fernando Torres.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to those of you who've left kudos/dropped comments. <3


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